


Subjunctive History

by sirius



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-29 09:12:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 36,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15726387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirius/pseuds/sirius
Summary: “It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.”― Alan Bennett, The History Boys





	1. 2015

**MILTON KEYNES (DECEMBER 2015)**

Max blinks into the beam of light hitting his chair, agitatedly chewing on his thumbnail. Bees in a hive; workers attending to the lights and the cameras whilst their queen sits stoic. Waiting for the interview to start is like sitting on the grid and the interviewer – Alison? – her smile encourages him like a dentist holding the drill.

“So, Max,” she says, as the rest of the bees still to a dull hum. “Melbourne. What were you thinking? First time on the grid, youngest driver in the history of the sport. That must have been amazing.”

Max coughs the words up into his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.”

He can feel kaleidoscopic eyes on him as she prompts,“what was going through your mind? Take us there.”

Cold sickly grey in the pit of his stomach; hands quaking like over-milked porridge; a bead of sweat writing on his spine beneath Nomex swaddling. Peeing fourteen times between 1pm and 2pm. Praying for breakfast to remain put. Not answers he wants recorded for the ages and despite himself, he manages to express his excitement at the great experience that was being offered to him.

“No nerves?”

“Not really, just doing my job.”

His dad has a barrel chest and he leads with it, with it and with answers like those. The camera has his thighs in shot so he's careful not to move his palms lest the sweat stick to his jeans. Carlos' eyes are on him and he feels their heat through the hazy film of playing at being adult.

“Sure, I think everyone has nerves but especially for me because I had a lot to prove,” he corrects himself.

“A lot of people criticised the decision to give you a super-licence,” Alison says. “It was very controversial, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Max says.

“How did that make you feel?”

This comes as naturally as dropping the clutch: “Like I wanted to prove them all wrong.”

**MELBOURNE (MARCH 2015)**

**Carlos**

“So you like the meerkat best?” Max says, in disbelief.

“Yes,” says Carlos, again, as if he's talking to a three year old. “Meerkats are my favourite,” 

Max laughs. “That's so funny,” he says. “The alligators are cool. The giraffes are funny. Lions are amazing, right? The way they just tear into the meat. But meerkats are just small. You don't notice them.”

“Fernando is small,” says Carlos. “Nobody overlooks him.”

“Fernando isn't a meerkat.”

“Fernando is a lion,” Carlos agrees. “A really small lion.”

“I like the lions the most.”

“Yes but it's so obvious. Big lion, roar roar, I have a big dick.”

“I know what you're doing,” Max says, he seatbelt cutting into his neck as he cranes around. “You're copying Daniel, with his honey badger shit. You're the meerkat. Except it means that your racing style is sticking your head over the side of a burrow and running away, which is pretty shit.”

“Maybe you're the lion, then,” Carlos says. 

“I hope so,” Max says.

“You make lots of noise and fuss but really you don't actually do much. Everyone else in the pride brings you the food. I don't think Fernando is a lion at all. He's a lioness.”

Max has the decency to flush. It interests Carlos that what turns him pink isn't the remark about the size of his penis, but the inference of uselessness. Either way, it pokes the testosterone nest and so it doesn't surprise Carlos when Max goes on (and on, and on) to defend his honour. 

“OK but then if I am challenged, it's a fight to the death on behalf of Toro Rosso!”

“That's stupid,” Carlos says. “Nobody would want that.”

“It's heroic. You're Spanish. You're supposed to get that.”

“I'm pragmatic. It's stupid and a meerkat wouldn't do it.”

“A meerkat wouldn't have the balls.”

He's on the ropes. Trying to fight dick talk with ball talk and the pink heat tells of his little acquaintance with either. Carlos smiles at an internal conflict translating to movement as Max yanks at his seatbelt. Pulling too hard, it bites him back around the throat. His face is so enraged, so perfect a picture of impotency that Carlos can't help but laugh. 

“Fuck _off,_ ” Max hisses as Carlos leans to pat his thigh, his eyes now averted and in the streets beyond.

***

Carlos' first race gifts him with points. He's back home; on his knees on a cold church floor hoping for faith's reward. It's a chore to climb out of the car; to feel the sweat starting to cool and stagnate, as will every damn day until he can get back into it. He is blessedly thankful and sated with contentment. He wears his shower sourly hot, glorious on tight muscles and satisfying a deep, carnal itch. Consequently, he doesn't hear the knock on the door until it builds to gunfire. He drags the door open with one hand, holding his towel closed with the other.

In the bathroom, he drags a towelling robe over his wet skin as they discuss the sister team. When he emerges, Max is conscientiously not looking at him, apparently fearful of his near-nakedness. Carlos elects to sit in the chair rather than on the bed. 

“It'll get better,” Max says. “It's just, you know. Like babies growing in teeth.”

“You're very positive after how it went for today,” Carlos says, guardedly.

“I got to drive today,” Max says. “That's all that matters to me.”

It strikes him that it won't be this way forever; the point at which just driving is no longer enough, it's coming for them both.

“It would've been nice for both cars to finish today,” he concedes.

“Next race, I'll cream you,” Max says. “Don't worry.”

“I don't worry,” Carlos is amused by Max's urgency, the sense of constant halted movement that emanates from every pore. For someone so young, he's in such a hurry to grow up. “Not about you. If you don't have both eyes on your own wheel, you're not going flat out.”

“Dad wisdom?”

“No. I mean, he'd agree, I guess, but we don't discuss motorsport much.”

“Lucky you.”

“Occupational hazard, huh?”

“Yeah. I should've become a plumber or something. My dad has no idea about stuff like that.”

“When I was young, I wanted to breed unicorns. I wanted a whole field of different coloured unicorns. I would charge people to see them and travel all over Spain, making people happy.”

“Carlos, you're _really_ weird.”

Carlos shrugs good-naturedly. “I'd rather be my weird than someone else's normal.”

“I'd rather be my normal.”

“Max, we drive cars at 200mph, get paid crazy money and don't know what country we're in half the time. We get interviewed as if we know things about the world. We're not normal.”

“I'm always gonna be normal,” Max says. “My own person. That's how my dad raised me. To be normal, to remain the person I am. This isn't going to change me.”

“That's a good goal,” Carlos says. He doesn't want to tell Max that it already has.

***

When he calls home, his parents are decent enough not to point out the almighty time difference. At least, not initially. From his mother's voice, he wouldn't have guessed that it's nearly five o'clock in the morning. But then, as she reminds him, it's not every day (every morning?) that your first-born son scores points in his first Grand Prix. Her pride brings tears to his eyes.

But it's dad who breaks him.

“Ah, son, it's such a great day,” he says, every mile of the distance between them echoing in the scratch of the telephone line. “I am so proud, so very proud. To think that my son has just finished his first Grand Prix and got points too! What a great day for the family.”

It means a lot, because, well. It's not like his dad hasn't brought enough glory to the family name. He'd understand it if his parents were a bit less excited than they are. When he points it out, he's violently shushed.

“Carlos!” his dad exclaims, to the higher echo of his mother behind him, clearly reaching for the 'phone. “I am never a Formula 1 driver, am I? This is a first for the Sainz family! You have made us all very proud, don't ever forget this.”

“I won't,” Carlos says.

“What was it like?”

“Over really fast!”

“Hah, I bet you will be awake all night now, like when you were young and it was Christmas. Your mother had to feed you so much to get you to sleep. Probably this still would work. Go down to the motorhome and ask them nicely for lots of spicy food, to help you with sleeping.”

“Dad, they're not going to just make me some food in the middle of the night!”

“Why not! You are Toro Rosso's best rookie today! Only one with points. Demand your rights.”

“Dad!”

“I'm kidding,” he laughs. He isn't. “Ah, I am so sad not to be there to see it. Will you send your mum and I the pictures?”

“I will,” Carlos says. “They're mostly of the zoo, though.”

“The zoo?”

“Yeah, shit, I never told you – we do these... team challenges, like a friendly rivalry thing, Max and me. And for this race-”

“Who won?”

“What?”

“Who won the team challenge?”

“You don't even know what it is yet!”

“I don't care.”

“I did,” Carlos says.

“Good boy.”

“Thank you. Can I speak now?”

“Go ahead.”

“OK, so the challenge was pretending to be animals from the zoo we visited in Melbourne.”

“So you won at monkey impressions?”

“I told you you would want to know what it was!”

“No, you know, it's good. Best monkey. Well done.”

“Dad,” Carlos says. “You're ruining it.”

“In my day, we didn't get to go to fun trips out...”

“Yeah, well, why not start one now? You could go and meet up with your rally buddies and call it the Natural History Museum visit.”

“Haaaaa. I'm putting your mum back on.”

“Dad,” Carlos wheedles.

“I am really very proud,” his dad says. “It's like when we first saw Fernando. But even more, because it's you.”

Carlos is glad when his mother takes the 'phone away, because it's all getting awkwardly emotional and he's looking forward to a lecture about his laundry instead.

“Have you got enough clothes?” is his mother's first question.

“Yes,” he says. “They provide me with clothes.”

“OK. Do you need anything? Washing powder? Sleeping remedies?”

“Mum, I'm 21 years old.”

“And I'm your mother. Do you need laundry tablets?”

“No, mum, they do it for you.”

“That's not good, I didn't raise you this way! You must offer to help.”

Carlos tries to imagine Franz's face if he goes downstairs and volunteers to help the staff with the washing. “OK,” he says. “I will.”

“Are you going to send us photos? Your dad and I would like to see them.”

“Yeah, I told dad – but they're all of the zoo.”

“What zoo? Is this what the F1 people call it these days? The cool zoo club?”

“No, Melbourne Zoo. Max and I went. It was so great – I got to see like ten meerkats!”

“You didn't do your impression, did you.”

“Yes, but it was for a challenge!”

“I bet Max was scared.”

“Max isn't scared of anything.”

“Is he a nice boy?”

“Mum.”

“What?”

“Don't say it like that!”

“I know he can drive, I see that on TV. I ask because I don't know if he's a good boy! It's a perfectly reasonable question! He's very young...”

“I don't know, he's really quick which is a bit of a pain. I'll let you know.”

“Hold on,” his mum says. “Your dad's heard me say Max's name and wants a word.”

Carlos groans.

“I don't care if he's a nice boy,” his dad says. “You know? I don't care. I want to know: can you beat him?”

“Of course I can beat him,” Carlos says. “He's like, twelve years old.”

“That's the spirit. Now, Carlos, you know what I'm going to say...”

“Dad...”

“No, no, hear me out, your mum is shushing me too but it's important to remember the goal, why you're here! You're not going to get all distracted by him, like with Pierre, are you? Because that was Formula Renault, and this is bigger, so you don't need to do that. Your mum and I don't mind if you like boys like Pierre-”

“Dad.”

“No, no, we're very modern! Very 2015. It's all cool with us. I just don't want you to get distracted.”

“Dad, please stop.”

“Is that an agreement?”

“If it makes this stop, yes.”

“Alright, good,” his dad says. “Now, you go out and celebrate, OK? Let your aged parents have some more sleep.”

“Oh, fuck,” Carlos exclaims, probably a touch too loudly.

“Language!” his mother says.

“Sorry, sorry, I thought it was 8am there!”

“Now Carlos,” his mother says, now taking over the 'phone. “It's not every morning your first-born son gets points in his first Grand Prix! You can call your mother any time with that kind of news!”

“Thanks, mum.”

“Your dad is right about Pierre, though, hon-”

“MUM.”

“Alright, alright! Go and celebrate. Love and kisses!”

 

**Max**

The sunlit streets blur past on their retreat from the zoo. Max irritably pulls at the seatbelt, leaving impressions in his neck. Carlos' eyelashes move slowly fan-like as he blinks into the sunlight. It strikes Max as inexplicably and outrageously flirtatious and it angers him that it strikes him at all. They're discussing which animals they all are, which is appropriate, because Max feels entirely animalistic. 

“Maybe you're the lion, then,” Carlos says. 

“I hope so,” Max says.

“You make lots of noise and fuss but really you don't actually do much. Everyone else in the pride brings you the food. I don't think Fernando is a lion at all. He's a lioness.”

Max rolls his eyes. Spaniards. Who would want to be a helpmeet of a lion? Better to be the king; maintaining your territory with the scent of blood and piss.

“OK but then if I am challenged I will fight to the death on behalf of Toro Rosso!”

“That's stupid,” Carlos says. “Nobody would want that.”

“It's heroic. You're Spanish. You're supposed to get that.”

“I'm pragmatic. It's stupid and a meerkat wouldn't do it.”

“A meerkat wouldn't have the balls.”

Carlos' big brown eyes so mock and so know that Max can't stand it. Aggression curls in the pit of his spine and blows through like a hot wind. He yanks at the seatbelt so hard that it fights back, snaps him in the neck. He swears loudly and Carlos descends into laughter.

***

Porridge drowned in milk solidifies eventually. Max presses his foot down and feels the roar of 15 cars all surging to a first corner only 500 full steps away. It's the greatest day of his short life; the rush of five green lights winking into nothingness, the blindness of adrenaline and sound that reaches to the tips of his boots. That he doesn't finish the race is a pain, but three hours after retiring he can still feel the track toiling away in his muscles, stretching the sinews, flexing the nerve endings. He can't sit still. He can't get a drink without timing himself to ensure the quickest fetch he's ever done. It's as if the end of the world has arrived. He hopes that the buzz fades off before he has to sleep and that it never does.

Ricciardo apologies to the fans for the lack of spectacle. The word he uses makes Max want to laugh. How can any of them get out of the cars at the end, how can any of them bear to stop? 

“Boring?” he asks Xevi. “Is he doing the same thing I am?”

“Max,” says Xevi. “Never change.”

***

He goes to congratulate Carlos on the points despite them not being his. Despite his taste in animals, his eyelashes and his having more points, he likes Carlos. The door opens to steam and Carlos stands holding a scrap of fabric over his essentials. Max blinks, hard, looks away. The blood thumps his ears and he doesn't hear Carlos say, “in the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion knocks on my door, tonight...”

“Hi,” he says, awkwardly. “Er. I was-”

“The lion is here to eat me? Come in. I'll season myself.”

“Carlos, you're so weird,” Max says, but he follows him in. He relaxes his fists when Carlos emerges from the bathroom in a robe, asking whether Max has heard about how angry Helmut is. It isn't a question that Max can answer immediately because Carlos hasn't any socks on. His feet are the colour of sun-dappled wood. 

“With the performance?”

“With Daniil, with the engine. And I think... you know, this isn't what they hoped would happen.”

“Testing went badly,” Max says. “So I don't know... it was clear, no?”

“That's not how they think, though, is it. I mean, nobody wants to go from 2013 to this.”

“It'll get better,” Max says. “It's just, you know. Like babies growing in teeth.”

“You're very positive after today,” Carlos says.

“I got to drive today,” Max says. “That's all that matters to me.”

***

“The next one will go better,” Jos says. His voice is always more clipped on the 'phone, or so it sounds. “I'll have a word if it doesn't improve, but I'm not concerned. I mean, yeah, OK, not ideal that Carlos got to score the points – and it would've been a nice statement to get points in the first one – but you know what you're there to do, anyway. Don't be too disheartened.”

“No, it was good,” Max says. “I mean, until the car stopped, it was good. I was enjoying it. It feels like it's a quick car,  
so-”

“You'll be able to show your thing more in Malaysia. It looked pretty racy, so remember to show your stuff when you  
can. We all know what you can do – we just need to see it.”

“How's everything at home?”

“Home? Oh, fine.”

“It's just weird, being so far away.”

“Ah, you've been away from home for years.”

“Yeah, but not to Australia.”

“How's Carlos? Think he'll be easy to beat?”

“He's quick,” Max says, cautiously. He doesn't add: and he looks like a fucking male model. “We went to Melbourne Zoo during the week. You know, for filming. Which was fun. We have to do these challenges-”

“OK,” his dad says, and, more urgently, “But on track?”

“Er, yeah, I think he'll be good competition.”

“Good,” Jos says. “I was concerned they wouldn't put someone in the other car who could challenge you a bit, you know. It's important to learn from your teammate.”

“Yeah, I think that'll be fine. He has lots of experience from his dad, too.”

“Oh? What does his dad do?”

“Rally.”

“Oh, OK,” says Jos, and Max remembers that nothing exists in his world but Formula 1. “Well, that'll give him a small chance against you then, huh?”

“Hah, yeah.” Max says. “How's Victoria?”

“Fine. Won't stop talking about you. She wants to drive cars now, too.”

“Really? That's cool.”

“Yeah, it's quite cute,” Jos says. 

“Tell her I miss her?”

“Sure,” Jos says. “But work on getting a real girl that you can miss when you're away, know what I'm saying?”

**SHANGHAI (APRIL 2015)**

**Carlos**

The race is shit and Carlos can't find Max afterwards. He isn't hunting out food, playing on his Playstation or Youtubing footage of races from before his dad was born. Nobody else has seen him. He gets caught up talking to Fernando (because, Fernando) for far too long (because, Fernando) in the bar (because, alcohol) before remembering what he came down to the lobby to do and by that time he figures that Max is in bed. 

Walking on the carpet, the street lights dance around his feet. The door to the breakfast room is ajar and neon peppers the darkness of the room. One of the curtains is wafting in a breeze. It strikes him that it could be a trap set by a sadistic killer, which makes him wonder what a non-sadistic killer is. A pale hand slides between the gap in the curtains, sending lightsaber beams across the floor. This is how I die, Carlos thinks. On the whole, not a terrible life. Not enough sex, obviously. Especially not with-

Max sticks his head through the gap. “Fuck,” he exclaims. “You were creeping so quietly I thought it was an axe murderer!”

“That's an odd weapon of choice, isn't it,” Carlos says. “There aren't many murderers who kill with axes. They're heavy. Not really a good tool. I mean, unless it's a murderer who kills axes, but that doesn't make sense.”

“Fuck's sake,” Max says, slightly taken aback.

“It's like people always say 'sadistic killer'. Like killing is not sadistic. Like there's a really nice serial killer out there with compassion. I was just thinking of this before.”

Max is staring at him, his mouth parted. It's endearing. Carlos ducks through the curtain to the window seat beyond. The effect sitting down is slightly vertiginous but the view is worth it. Max sits in lounge pants and team t-shirt with his iPhone and headphones in his lap. The strip-lit skyline plays over his body, creating curves on his face and illuminating his neck.

“What're you listening to?” 

“Nothing you'd be interested in,” Max grins. “Your music taste is shit.”

“You can't talk. Dutch music is shit. Look at Eurovision.”

“I'm half-”

“Belgium isn't even a country.”

“It – fuck off, don't be an idiot. Of course it is.”

“The entire police force went on holiday for a day and nobody noticed. That's not a country. It's a group of people who refuse to be French or German. They speak French or German so they combined the two and ended up with Flemish. Weird place. Great waffles, though.”

“I think that's Luxembourg,” Max says.

“There aren't waffles in Luxembourg.”

“No, the police thing. It wasn't Belgium. It was Luxembourg or it was in The Purge.”

“You're not old enough to have seen The Purge, I'm telling your dad.”

As soon as the laugh is out, Max clamps his hand over his mouth girlishly. Carlos adds it to his mental flip-book of Max's laughs with the title Prohibition Giggle. 

“Your face has gone all weird,” Max says.

“Thank you,” Carlos says. “Truly I have waited a very long time for a compliment like that. I am going to cry.”

“Want to listen to my music?”

“Not if it's Dutch.”

“It's not Dutch.”

There isn't much string between the buds so Carlos shuffles down in the rearranged cushions, entangling his legs with Max's. Max flinches as if unused to physical proximity, but after a moment visibly relaxes. The string between them hangs loose and Carlos relaxes his muscles into the warmth of a mutual touch. He watches Max as the beat kicks in. The city is painting on his skin; adverts for one thing and then another and Carlos would buy them all. His eyes close, his lips form lyrics. His ears are pink with pleasure, not neon. He closes his own eyes. The song flows into Carlos' left ear and out of Max's right, filling their heads with the same precise moment. His pulse thrums when he feels Max's gaze burning through his eyelids.

The music is in both their ears, but it touches Max in a place that Carlos can't and for that, he envies it.

 

**Max**

Max deals with the race (for which read: unmitigated disaster) very maturely, retreating to a window-seat and closing its curtains over him. Therein he hopes to avoid his father and listen to angry music for as long as he can. As plans go, it's a good one; until his senses start to prickle and he wonders for the first time whether he should have armed himself. He slides a warning arm between the curtains but the footsteps maintain tread. With a sigh, he sticks his head out of his fort and prepares to confront the invader. He swears hotly into Carlos' face.

“I thought you were an axe murderer!”

Carlos' killing skills are limited to talking complete nonsense but he uses them to such great effect that the only way to shut him up is to offer him an earbud. The music is an urgent rasp with a staccato drum, embarrassingly proud, but Carlos doesn't seem to mind. He closes his eyes and despite the uneven sound, Max loosens into the familiarity of it, the noise and need that defines his every waking moment. So grateful for the companionability in his fort, he doesn't see how intently he is studied by Carlos. He imagines that it's the music raises the hairs on his arms, without knowing that it's the locked gaze of pure ristretto. 

 

****

**BARCELONA (MAY 2015)**

**Max**

Toro Rosso seem to have taken to heart the idea that theirs is a team of children and it's reflected in their promo videos. Max and Carlos are set a variety of tasks which nonetheless provoke their competitive instincts. This time out, they're given a steering wheel and told to drive the Circuit de Catalunya in their minds. For Max this is the best one yet, as it gives him an opportunity to prove his boast that he could drive the circuit with his eyes shut. Plus, Carlos has out-qualified him on the real bloody thing and he'll take revenge in whatever scrappy form it presents itself. Two minutes will never again elapse so fast. Pleased with the intimidation writ large on Carlos' face, he gleefully swaps places with him. 

Max doesn't bother watching the steps Carlos takes to get in the zone. He's driven with Carlos for long enough to know by heart his superstitious chronology and his cyclical routines of checking. Instead, he thinks about one of the girls back home. It's possible that Anouk may be his saviour; the godly evidence after over five years that he's not. That he is. That he likes. So, that's good and his dad will be happy. 

****

Carlos continues to fuss with the set-up, as if he's not just sitting in an armchair. That's the difficulty in being brought up with a racing driver who is a father, rather than vice versa. Carlos learned seriousness at his father's knee. What Max doesn't know is whether Carlos would be able to tell his dad that he didn't like. That he is. One day in the next century, maybe he'll tell his dad. _Maybe_. 

When Carlos says “go”, it acts as a direct instruction. He's glad of Carlos' closed eyes as he watches him draw the circuit with the tilt of his head, the flick of his wrists and the dart of his feet. Every corner write a deep undisturbed focus on his face. His fingers are smooth and long and capable, pulling the levers to coax more speed out of a car that exists only in his mind. When his eyelashes flutter in pleasure, Max shivers at knowing that they have the same favourite part of the circuit. It's a moment of mental touching and Max doesn't know how to come back from it, from the thought that it's taken him five years to find a girl capable of making him straight enough to please his dad. In his qualifying lap, Carlos has spun a web of truth with his long fingers and the futility of things makes Max want to cry. 

I'm not. I am. I like. 

****Carlos** **

For the team's new promo film, Max and Carlos are given a steering wheel and told to drive the Circuit de Catalunya in their minds. Their times will be compared to their best test laps and Carlos desperately wants to out-qualify Max for a second time that day. They're allowed to watch each other perform after some persuasion. 

“You can't make a sound,” the cameraman says. “This needs to be one take, or he gets an advantage. So if you distract him, he gets another go. And vice versa. OK?” 

Carlos would rather amputate a part of himself than give Max an advantage. He settles down on a beanbag and relishes the rare opportunity to watch Max at work without the barriers of carbon fibre. It would have been an excellent learning opportunity but as Max slides down into his makeshift racing seat, his shorts ride high and transfix Carlos on the pale inner of his thighs. Max closes his eyes as he starts. His calves relax and his thigh muscles flex as instinct takes over his feet. Every single second is one that Carlos is wasting, but the thighs are so soft, so pale, so untouched by the freckles that otherwise torment Max. He has a thing about thighs. He likes them cuddling his hips as he fucks; cradling his ears as he sucks. When Max says, “stop,” it acts as a direct instruction. Max's eyes are open and calculating. Carlos feels his cheeks grow warm. 

The time is recorded. With an internal shake, Carlos switches places with Max. 

It doesn't surprise Carlos that Max beats him. What surprises him is that he doesn't care. 

**MONTE CARLO (MAY 2015)**

**Max**

Monaco needs no introductions but gets them anyway. Carlos has taken to calling it Monte Carlos and it makes Max want to strangle him. Monte Carlos – Monaco – is claustrophobic enough without the looming spectre of unresolved sexuality issues. As well as being the ageless jewel in the crown, Mark's victories here have made it Red Bull country. He's aware that everything shifts up a gear the moment that the principality sweeps into view. Everyone wants to do well but Max wants to do better. Those who were laughing before the start of the 2015 season aren't laughing now.

Posting second on Thursday morning, Max thinks that Monaco sorts the men from the boys and he is ready to reach 18.

***

A crash doesn't look the way that it feels. Soft barriers give the impression of jumping from a height onto a bouncy castle but crashing sends all your senses into overdrive. It isn't his first crash but it's his first crash at Monaco. It's his first crash in a Formula 1 car. It's his first crash being watched live by millions of people. And it's crazy to think that that thought crosses his mind at all.

As the car slides away and the barriers loom larger than skyscrapers, he prepares for his life to flash before your eyes. Perhaps because of the brevity of Max's life, his brain struggles to load the footage. Instead of a first thought that reads 'tell everyone I know that I love them', or 'I'm too young to die', or even 'this is going to hurt', Max's is 'shit, a lot of people are going to see this'.

He forgets to let go of the wheel, to exhale, to absorb the impact with calm muscles and easy bones. The impact feels like being run over by a freight train. He doesn't breathe but the air is knocked right out of his lungs and he's convinced that he's broken every bone worthy of a name.

“Max,” Xevi says. “You OK?”

“Ow,” Max grumbles. “Yeah. Yeah, but I've crashed.”

Xevi doesn't laugh at the ridiculousness of being told what he already knows. His instructions are calm and authoritative because he's seen this before. A slow procession murmurs past him and his head throbs as he tries not to think about what his dad will say.

***

He can't stop thinking about how one of his socks is coming off. He doesn't want to adjust it because then his dad will think he's not listening. He is listening, it's just hard to listen when one of your socks is coming off.

“You can't get every pass right,” Jos says. “Nobody expects that. But you also need to stop thinking you're the big I Am because a few journalists think you're the next Michael Schumacher. You have to show good judgement as well as speed, otherwise all of this is a waste. I've said this to you before, but you don't listen. You get excited and stuff it all up.”

“I thought it was going to work,” Max says. “I'd done it a few times in the race before then and it worked. I just got caught out by Grosjean. But I'll learn from that.”

“It was obviously not going to work, Max,” Jos says. “Look at the replays and you'll see. There was no way – you were carrying too much speed and there was no room to pass there. The only outcome was crashing it.”

“Yeah, but you know that's not – when you're driving, you have to take chances. You don't think, OK, I will replay that in my head a few times first before I try to pass, to make sure it's OK.”

“The best drivers don't need to. It's instinctive. You don't have that right now. I've told you that, time and time again, but you're getting carried away because of what people are saying about you. You think everything you do will work because you're a racing driver and people are talking about you like you're the best guy out there. That's fucking stupid, Max. You have to learn judgement. I can't teach you it. It's up to you.”

The ironies of being lectured on displaying good judgement by his father aren't lost on Max, but he keeps his mouth shut for the greater good.

“I will learn,” he says, eventually. “I always learn. From everything. I would rather crash and learn than be scared and not learn because I didn't try.”

“Tell that to your team, whose million-pound equipment you just trashed,” Jos says. “They're not mutually exclusive. Crashing and learning. Sometimes I think you are too young for this.”

“I have apologised to the team!”

“Then don't boast about how crashing made you a better driver.”

“But you have to crash to become better. Otherwise you never know where the limits are!”

“If you think what you did today was right, you'll never be a great driver.”

“I don't think it was right, but I also don't think it was wrong.”

“Max, don't be stupid. It's either right or it's wrong. It's not Schroedinger's Overtake. For fuck's sake.”

“Mum always said-”

“Don't bring your mum into this. Your mum drove go-karts.”

“Don't-”

“Max, the point is this. Are you going to answer back to me or are you going to think about what I've said and become a better driver? It's up to you. But if not then don't waste more of my time and money, OK?”

Jos' big arms are crossed across his chest, his jaw juts and his eyes are narrow and hard. Max isn't scared of him, but sometimes he'd prefer that they weren't in the same room. 

“OK,” he says.

***

Staring at the ceiling in his bed, Max watches the harbour lights dance in the dark. The effect is a watery planetarium that distracts his thoughts. The blanket warms the muscles that still tremble with shock. His joints ache with vibration. Apparently it'll hurt more in the morning, which only adds to the pain of a sleepless night. Jos snores peaceably in the next room.

He turns his head to check the time and grimaces as his neck muscles protest. He should've taken the team up on their offer of horse tranquillisers. Mistaking the soft tap on the door for another snore, he snorts. When he hears it threefold he realises that even his dad can't snore that fast. By the time he's roused, the knock has become dangerously loud.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Ow, christ.”

His journey is hobbled and punctuated with such loud knocking that he assumes that the hotel is on fire, or someone has died. 

“Alright!” he hisses loudly, grabbing the handle and heaving the door open. “Hang on, I'm an invalid!”

Carlos is tiny in his pyjama pants and t-shirt in a way that he isn't in overalls. He carries orange juice in a jug and two glasses under his arm. Retracting a reddened elbow from the surface of the door, he walks right in and sets the juice down on the desk. Looking at Max still standing in the doorway, he chirps, “shut the door, then. We'll wake everyone up otherwise.”

“Carlos,” Max says. “It's nearly 3am.”

“Yes, I can tell the time too,” Carlos says. He busies himself pouring juice and then rubs his elbow distractedly.

“What are you doing here?”

“Giving you juice.”

“Why?”

“Because juice is delicious and good for bones.”

“That's milk.”

“Milk is disgusting.”

“No, milk is good for bones. Orange juice is good for the immune system.”

“What bullshit,” Carlos says. “It's good for bones. Here, drink up.”

“You haven't answered the question.”

“I'm here to give juice to a man who is stupid and doesn't want juice,” Carlos says.

There is no sensible answer to that, so Max takes the juice. He sips it, very aware of how nearly naked he is.

“I couldn't sleep either,” Carlos says.

“How did you know I couldn't sleep?”

“You know what I like? You ask a question, you get maybe 10% of the answer, then you ask another question, so you only ever get 10% of the answers to anything because you always have another question.”

“You sound like my dad.”

Carlos' brow furrows in confusion. There's a lot of brow to be furrowed and the overall effect is comic.

“Sorry,” he says. “I've been lectured.”

“Ah,” Carlos says, knowingly. 

“OK. Tell me why you're here and I'll shut up until you've finished. 100%. Go.”

“People don't sleep after a Today. When I had a bad crash last year in Formula Renault, someone brought me orange juice. I know it does fuck all for bones but it really does help. We sat and talked and drank the juice and I felt so much better afterwards. He didn't have to do it but he did. And so I thought about you tonight and that maybe you would want orange juice, too.”

Listening, Max realises two things. Firstly, left to his own devices, he would have continued to ask questions and scrape 10% segments of information out of a much fuller picture. Secondly, he wants to kill whoever He is. Carlos' face is fond and affectionate. It could be this moment or it could be Him. Max is torn between loving seeing it and wanting to know which of them is behind it. 

“You know, we had to do that stupid quiz about how well we know each other,” Carlos goes on. “Yesterday? About what side of the car we get into, our favourite corners and things. And it was funny because these are not the things that mean you really know someone, I think.”

“What are the things?”

“Mm,” Carlos says. “I think it's the things you're prepared to get wrong, so that you find out what really matters. You know? You go out on your limbs, you take a risk, then you are told 'yes this is exactly right' or 'no you idiot this is wrong, I like this more'. Does this make sense?”

“Not really, mate. Sorry.”

“OK. So I brought you some orange juice because for me, orange juice helps when I am hurt. I found this out because someone did it for me.”

Alright already. Stop talking about Prince Tropicana. I get the message.

“So I decide OK, maybe it is the same for you. And so I brought you juice, and I am prepared to get it wrong, so that if juice isn't right then you will tell me what does help instead.”

“So finding out what someone wants when they're hurt is a thing that means you really know them?”

“Yes, I think so,” Carlos says. “And I am prepared to get it wrong to find that out.”

“OK,” Max says. “But it's not a huge risk, is it? The worst is that I say I don't want juice and that instead I want cake.”

“True” Carlos says. “But with the bigger things, maybe the consequences are really big. But I still think it's worth doing. To risk it, to find out about that person and to do the right thing the next time.”

“Or find someone who just tells you what they want in the first place.”

“People don't always do that,” Carlos says, sipping his juice. “Like racing. You can spend your entire career waiting for the perfect overtake. Or you can take the risk, knowing that maybe it's right, maybe not, but either way you learn something about whether that space was really right for the pass.”

“My dad totally disagrees,” Max says. “He thinks crashing shows poor judgement.”

“So does mine,” Carlos says. “But in rallying, a crash is really bad. You want to avoid it at all costs.”

“But that's how you learn where the limits are.”

“Exactly.”

“OK. Well, I like to tell people outright. So in the spirit of honesty; the juice is good but it's not what I want most when I'm hurt.”

Carlos' face darkens with solemnity, countered by the bark of his laugh. “You can't leave me hanging like that. I'm competitive! I want to know what is the number 1 thing! I want to bring you that now!”

“No, you don't,” Max says.

“Is it cake?”

“No.”

“Is it steak?”

“No. Trust me, you don't want to know!”

“Is it in the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Tell me.”

“I can't.”

Carlos studies Max with earnest brown eyes. Momentarily, Max thinks that he's worked out what's going on in his mind and he's seized by an urge to sweep aside the moment. 

“Why not?” Carlos asks.

“Because it'd be taking a big risk. Bigger than you bringing me the juice.”

“But this is how you get to know someone.”

“Yes.”

“And how you learn to be a better driver.”

“Also true.”

“And so, it is worth it.”

“That doesn't make it easy.”

“No, but you are not a coward.”

“Carlos, you'll leave. You'll walk away.”

“I'm not that kind of person.”

“You don't know what it is.”

“That you have told me will mean more than what it is.”

“You have to promise me.”

“I promise that I won't walk away.”

“OK.” Max exhales. Wraps his arms around himself, touches sweaty palms against cold clammy knees. Sickness clings to his every pore and the room is hot and bubbly. “OK.”

“I'm not looking at you,” Carlos says. “My eyes are shut.”

They are, so Max considers telling him a lie. Something big and believable, just so that he never has to look back on this moment as the one that ruined his entire life. But he can't think of a lie big and believable enough and he's a shit liar anyway. And Carlos' jaw is stubble dark. Max craves its rasp on his neck, on his collarbone, on his belly. It's deserving of truth. 

“When I'm hurt, I want to be kissed.”

Carlos doesn't open his eyes but quirks a comical eyebrow. The impact of Max's interruptions is brought home to him then. Despite his obvious confusion, Carlos hasn't said a word. It's so much easier that he's silent and patient.

“When I'm hurt, I want to be kissed,” he says. “But I guess... even when I'm not hurt, I want to be kissed. But not by a woman.”

There's a beat of a few agonising seconds and then Carlos smiles, softly, and says, “OK. I understand.”

How can you? Max thinks. I don't.

**SPIELBERG (JUNE 2015)**

**Carlos**

Carlos and Max are standing outside their expensive hotel surrounded by expensive people in expensive clothing carrying expensive handbags and drinking expensive drinks, watching a cameraman bring over a large stump of wood with nails sticking out of it.

“They've run out of ideas,” Carlos says. “One of us is going to be killed.”

“The loser,” Max adds, and stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Today,” the cameraman briefs. “You're going to play nageln.”

“Gesundheit,” says Carlos.

The cameraman gives him a look like he's taking the piss. He blinks mildly.

“It's an Austrian tradition of nailing nails into a tree stump. You hit once with the hammer on each turn. The winner is the one who makes the nail disappear.”

Max ends the mood of collective embarrassment by suggesting that they toss a coin to decide who goes first. Flushing with the gravity of the word 'head', and the proximity of the human 'Max', Carlos manages to mutter his choice as the coin is tossed but at that moment a car rushes by and it's lost. The cameraman is staring at him, wondering how a man who drives a racing car is too stupid to play a coin toss. When he moreorless yells “heads” the second time, Max jumps.

“Tails,” the cameraman says.

“Fuck,” Carlos says.

“We're going to put the camera down here on the stump, to film you guys. Try not to hit it, OK?”

The coin toss offers no advantage due to their mutual and total ineptitude at nageln. It strikes Carlos that having chopped wood once, and put up a shelf a few years back, this should be an easy win. The problem is that he keeps thinking about other kinds of nailing and whether Max is any better at them. Whether Max even knows.

“I don't think anyone really won that,” the cameraman says, as the shoot grinds to a sad halt. “That was pretty terrible.”

“Well, it wasn't the best game idea,” Carlos says.

“You want to think up the next one?”

“Yeah, why not? It's gotta be better than this one!” 

As he says it, he has a terrible feeling.

***

He was right. They sit in his room, grappling the herculean feat of thinking of a – work-appropriate, Franz is keen to emphasise – challenge for the British Grand Prix. So far, all Carlos has come up with is judging a wet t-shirt competition, eating fish and chips and pretending to be at Hogwarts. All that Max has managed is to get progressively grumpier and grumpier.

“We could ride an elephant,” Max says, eventually. 

“In Britain?”

“They have them in zoos.”

“Elephants aren't very British.”

“Wasn't Dumbo British?”

“I don't know. I don't think that counts,” Carlos rubs his knees. “Anyway, I don't like elephants.”

“I'd noticed,” Max says darkly.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” he says. “What about a drawing challenge?”

“I can't draw,” Carlos says. “A singing competition?”

“Nope.”

“Who can stand outside for the longest time in the rain without dying?”

“No wet t-shirts.”

“No wonder they ran out of ideas,” Carlos moans. “Why did I even suggest this? Why didn't you stop me?”

Max's eyes go wide. “How? You just say the first thing in your brain! You talk in your sleep.”

“I don't!” Carlos says, though chewing on a thumbnail. “Do I?”

“Yeah. Usually about weird shit, like ice-skating giraffes or banks made of marshmallow, you fucking lunatic.”

“Last night, I dreamed I was the moon,” Carlos says.

“You were the man in the moon?”

“No, the moon. What man? Neil Armstrong? He came back.”

“No, not – my mum always used to tell me there was a man in the moon... what did you do when you were the moon?”

“I said hello to all the planets.”

“Of course you did.”

“What about a planet-naming challenge?”

“That'd be better for Russia or America...you know, they've been into space.”

“Britain doesn't have anything good to do.”

“Carlos, you live there.”

“I know, but everything I do isn't appropriate!”

“This is pathetic,” Max says. “Just tell them we're shit, we couldn't think of anything, we're sorry and we'll never object to their ideas again.”

“I hate losing,” Carlos says.

“Well, OK, let's play a game of why the fuck haven't you said anything about what I said to you?”

“Wait,” Carlos says. “I-”

“About what I told you in Monaco.”

“Max, I said I understood.”

“OK, and that was all? Nothing else? Not – like. I don't know. It was a big deal. I expected emotions.”

“I thought it was very brave of you to tell me,” Carlos says.

“That's not an emotion.”

“Being proud is an emotion.”

“No it isn't,” Max says, irritably.

“I was proud. It was a nice moment. I felt close to you. I do not know what it is you want.”

“I wanted you to react! To be shocked, or horrified, or – something. You're just weirdly calm.”

“What is wrong with being calm?”

“OK, but about this? It's not even legal in Spain!”

“It is legal in Spain,” Carlos says.

“Really?”

“Don't be rude about my homeland,” Carlos says.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

“Look, Max, I don't know what you want. I don't really understand. I am calm because I think that moment was very big for you, and it is important for me to show you that it doesn't change things for me. I totally accept it. It doesn't mean I am not happy you said it to me. I am very glad. And I think it's cool, you know. I mean, for me – it's something we share, after all-”

“Hang on, you feel the same way and you're still calm? I hate you.”

Carlos scratches his head. “I have very liberal friends. It's totally cool.”

“I hate you. I actually do.”

“I haven't worked it all out yet. But that's cool. Life's a journey and all that. Max, you have to relax. Haha, that rhymes!”

Max fixes him with a look.

“Sorry. But that was why I was calm. Because you can be calm. I want you to be calm. It's not good if you are shocked or horrified about it, you know? That's not a good place.”

“OK,” Max says.

“OK,” Carlos says, smiling.

“Sorry,” Max adds.

“De nada,” Carlos says. “Hakuna matata. Et cetera.”

“Did you just quote The Lion King at me?”

“Hey, we could do a Disney knowledge round!”

“Disney's not British...”

**SILVERSTONE (JULY 2015)**

**Carlos**

“I can't make tea,” Carlos says in dismay. “I'm Spanish. I don't like tea. This is an unfair challenge.”

Feet crossed under him on Max's bed, he's Googling 'English cup of tea'. Max is reading a motorbike magazine, propped up against the pillows, ignoring every single last word.

“Does it really have a lemon? Why are English people so weird? Why would you put a lemon in tea? Are we going to be given a lemon? Do we have to chop it up?”

Max looks up from his magazine. “Carlos, chill the fuck out. Seriously.”

“I cry when I cut up a lemon!”

“That's onions.”

“No, I also cry when cutting onions.”

“Carlos, it's a stupid game,” Max says. “I can't make tea either. It's fine. I don't care. You're beating me anyway.”

“You are competitive about everything except this,” Carlos says, nudging him with his shoulder. Max smiles to himself.

“This is the only thing I don't have to be competitive about! It's just stupid fun stuff, you know? Hakuna whatever.”

“Hakuna matata. I can't believe you've never seen The Lion King.”

“I wasn't even born then.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

***

“Jenson,” Carlos wheedles. He's impressed at his fortune in catching him in the media centre. An audience with Jenson in Britain is like an audience with the Queen. Now that he thinks about it, she probably knows how to make a good cup of tea.

“Mmm?” Jenson says. He's brushing down Fernando's shoulders. Why is it that whenever Carlos sees Fernando, another driver is adjusting his clothing? He puts it to the back of his mind for the sake of the greater good: beating Max.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did,” Jenson says, smiling. Carlos resists the urge to sigh, because of the importance of getting Jenson on side. Smiling through the pain makes Jenson look momentarily alarmed. “Please go ahead,” he adds.

“What's your favourite cup of tea?”

“Twinings,” Jenson says. “Can't live without their English brekkie tea.”

Carlos scribbles down 'English brecky tea' on his hand. Jenson eyes him suspiciously.

“Why?”

“We – me and Max – have to make tea for a video challenge. Proper English tea. So what is this brekky tea? Is it made with special herbs?”

“Breakfast tea.” A wry smile of amusement plays on Jenson's face.

Old people. “Yes, but what is it? You only have it with breakfast?”

“It's flavoured with all the flavour of an English fry-up,” says Fernando. “Eggs and sausage and hash brown and black pudding and more eggs and lots of tomato ketchup. And beans everywhere.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Carlos says. “And who makes it? Twining?”

“Twinings,” Jenson says. “But it isn't fry-up flavoured.”

“Yes it is,” Fernando says.

“Who are you going to believe?” Jenson says. “I'm English. I know my tea.”

“I'm Spanish,” Fernando says.

Carlos' eyes dart between them before he announces in a rush, “Fernando. I'm not stupid.”

“Good luck with your tea,” says Jenson, clapping him on the back as he departs.

Carlos eyes Fernando. “So, how do you make English tea?” 

Fernando looks at him blankly. “I don't know,” he says. “Ask an English person.”

***

“Wiiiiiiill,” Carlos wheedles. Will looks at him like he'd rather be in any other place on the entire planet but here, propped up on a large storage box and enjoying a rare bit of English sunshine. The year's quota, probably. Carlos gives him his widest, most adorable smile.

“What?” Will says. He lifts his sunglasses back onto his head.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“As long as it's not about cars, sure,” Will says. “Pull up a pew.”

“What?”

“Hop up here.”

Carlos can see why this is Will's chosen spot. It's warm, out of sight of passers-by and cracking for getting a view into the hospitality area, where all the models and singers and girls who like to wear tight dresses go to mingle with-

“What's the question,” Will says.

“Oh, yes, sorry. Um.” Carlos can't find his pen to write the answer under the sweaty smudged 'brekky'. He doesn't suppose it really matters. “What's your favourite cup of tea?”

“Yorkshire,” Will says.

“Tea from Yorkshire?”

“No, Yorkshire Tea.”

“... I don't see how that's different.”

“It's a brand, mate. It's called Yorkshire Tea. It might be from Yorkshire, I guess, but I don't know. It's my favourite,  
anyway. Why?”

Carlos makes a mental note of this. “Me and Max have to film a tea-making challenge. For a team member who is English so it has to be good English tea.”

“Oh,” Will says, almost as if he can't contemplate being so young and free and unencumbered with terribly adult, taxing thoughts. Carlos is sure they're roughly the same age, which makes it all the weirder.

“Max always swore by Typhoo,” he says.

“Typhoon? Max doesn't like typhoons. Nobody likes typhoons.”

“No, Typhoo. It's another tea brand.”

“Max hates tea.”

“What? He's not allowed to, he's British.”

“He's Dutch...”

“Oh, sorry, I meant Chilton. Not Verstappen.”

“This has been a weird conversation,” Carlos says.

“Tell me about it,” Will says.

“But thank you. I will try to make tea like in Yorkshire.”

“Good luck, mate.”

***

As it happens, he runs into Lewis in the elevator. Lewis, his last hope. He has nobody else to ask, having asked all day and received a lot of strange words that make no sense put together. Roscoe sits at Lewis' feet, regarding his reflection in the surrounding mirrors with vague consternation. It must be weird being a bulldog. Any kind of dog, really, but it's probably especially challenging to be a bulldog. Low centre of gravity and low brain cells. Kind of like being Pastor Maldonado, except that people finds you cute. But that, he reminds himself, isn't the point.

“Lewis,” he says. “I was looking for you!”

“Yeah?” Lewis says, tugging his headphones down from his eyes. Something that Carlos recognises as Daniel  
Ricciardo music is blaring from within. “Sorry man. I'll just pause this.”

“It's no wonder you have to ask your engineer so many questions if you listen to music so loud,” Carlos says.

“What?”

“No, just – you know. Haha.”

“Right,” Lewis says. The lift moves agonisingly slow. Roscoe shifts his weight onto his back legs and makes to slump down. Clearly in post-running mode. Lewis, obviously, not Roscoe. Carlos searches for a way of getting the conversation back on track.

“I like his bandana,” he says, nodding at Roscoe.

“Thanks. Gotta keep him stylish. Sorry, you said you were looking for me?”

“Yeah, er. Question. About tea.”

“Tea?”

“Yeah.”

“O...K. Shoot.”

“So Max and I have to do this challenge where we make proper English tea and I don't know shit about this, I hate tea, but I want to beat Max. And I've asked pretty much everyone but they keep giving me advice that doesn't make sense and I just want someone to give me an answer as to how you make tea so an English person will like it.”

“Oh, right, OK,” Lewis says. “Who have you asked?”

“Jenson. He kept going on about breakfast. Fernando but he wasn't any help. I asked Dany but he went into this weird description about the order of milk and water and I kinda zoned out because it was boring. Daniel said he didn't know which is weird because Australia's like, a big version of England, kinda? And then I asked Will, who helped a bit, except that apparently you have to go to Yorkshire to get good tea? And just now, Nico, but he didn't know either.”

“Nico is shit at tea,” Lewis says, darkly.

“Not that Nico,” Carlos says.

“Oh,” Lewis says.

“So please help me because I am going to lose.”

“I don't really like tea that much, man,” Lewis says. Carlos thinks he might cry.

“But,” he adds, quickly. “Everyone in my family does. So I know a good cuppa when I see one!”

“You are my hero,” Carlos says.

“Bag in, hot water in. Let it brew. Like, two minutes. Then remove teabag, stir and add milk. Not loads. And two sugars tops.”

“Is that breakfast, or Yorkshire?”

“For breakfast, sure. I don't know about Yorkshire, I haven't been in years.”

“Thanks,” Carlos says. “OK. That makes sense.”

“Isn't Rob from Yorkshire?”

“Smedley?”

“Sure. Somewhere down there, I think?”

Carlos hadn't thought of this. Lewis is the most helpful person he knows. When he tells him this, Lewis smiles slightly awkwardly and holds the door open for him as he jumps out. He leaves them both behind, Roscoe still fixated on his reflection. Smedley, Carlos thinks. Where to find a Smedley on a Friday evening.

***

In hindsight, the bar should've been obvious but nobody expects a Spaniard to look in an obvious place first.

“Rob!” he says, inquisitorially.

Rob eyes him. “Hello,” he says. “Are you allowed in here?”

“Haaaaa,” Carlos says. He's not in the mood. He has spent the entire day talking about tea and if he doesn't win this challenge, he's going to throw the tea into the harbour. “I want to ask you a question about Yorkshire.”

“OK,” Rob says. “That's one I haven't heard before.”

“How do you make the tea they have in Yorkshire?”

“What?”

“The tea in Yorkshire. It's the best. I hear this. So now I want to know how it's made.”

Rob frowns. “What are you talking about?”

Carlos frowns back. Surely it's perfectly fucking simple. “Yorkshire tea,” he says, more slowly. “How do you make it?”

“You don't make it,” Rob says. “You buy it in Tescos.”

“What?”

“Or Waitrose, if you're feeling flush.”

“OK. So I don't need to go to Yorkshire to get Yorkshire's tea?”

“It's a brand,” Rob says. “You can buy it in the supermarket.”

“Any supermarket?”

“Yes,” Rob says, patiently. “It's just the name.”

“Ah,” Carlos says. “That's why I needed to ask someone from Yorkshire. I should have asked you first. Thanks, mate. I owe you one.”

Clapping Rob on the shoulder, he commends himself; Max doesn't stand a chance of fighting eight hours of reconnaissance. And, to boot, he's just been given the location of the Holy Grail. He'll go to Tescos, buy the Yorkshire tea, and wipe that smug smile off Max's face. Brilliant, Carlos. You're completely brilliant.

“I'm not from Yorkshire,” Rob says, to nobody in particular.

**MOGYORÓD (JULY 2015)**

**Max**

Max has to remind himself a lot that he likes his dad. It's not that he doesn't believe it, but sometimes it's very, very hard to do. He stretches his neck and his ear away from the 'phone for a moment, closing his eyes.

“Max, are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” he says. “I'm listening. I'm just tired. Sorry.”

“Soon you'll be back at home and you can train here where there's no attention. It'll do you good to be at home.”

“Yes,” Max agrees. Sometimes he thinks he could live with his dad forever and sometimes all he wants to do is leave. If that's becoming an adult, he wishes that he could grow up as quickly as he drives.

“Make sure you say goodbye and thank everyone before you leave, to keep up that impression, like I said.”

“I know, dad, I will. When I'm back, can we go fishing?”

“Fishing?”

“Yeah. Like we used to. We have some time to do that.”

“Sure,” Jos says, but it's offhand and probably easily forgotten. “We'll have to think of something else for Victoria to do, she'd be bored stiff.”

“She likes fishing, you just need to be patient with her. She doesn't copy so fast.”

“Daughters don't really fish,” Jos says. “But I'll do my best.”

“She can drive cars, so she can fish,” Max says. “You have to explain it right, you know.”

“So that a girl can get it,” Jos says.

Max knows two things. Firstly, no matter how much he loves his sister, he'll never win this argument. Secondly, that it isn't going to stop him trying. “No, it's just that we're different. You like teaching me because I think like you, so I pick up your way. She thinks like mum. You just have to keep trying. It's not because she's a girl, we're just-”

“Max,” Jos says. “You are going to learn, probably very soon, that the differences between men and women are beyond your entire lifespan to understand. Best to just accept now that there are girl styles and girl feelings and girl reasons, that you don't and will never understand. Just trying to save you some time, buddy.”

Max doesn't know which element of this sentence he disagrees with the most, so he opts for what he hopes is a  
dignified silence.

“So what's Carlos doing, over the break?”

“Carlos?” Max says, startled. Carlos, who understands, but who won't share any of his wisdom other than fucking Disney catchphrases.

“Yes. The teammate you're pulverising.”

“He's-”

“He's your biggest enemy. Never forget that.”

“He's going home to London,” Max says. “I think they're having a big family get together. His mum wants to go to Harrods...”

“Ah.” Jos says. “Remember, we went there when you were little? You went crazy over that bear with the beefeater costume on. Threw such a mad fit, everyone was staring.”

“I was four!”

“Yep, that's what made it so funny, you were old enough to know better,” Jos says. “But you never did it again. Crying doesn't get what you want. And you forgot about the bear two hours later, anyway.”

I probably just realised that you'd prefer it if I had my emotions on the inside only, Max thinks.

“Ah, my trainer's here,” Max says. “Gotta run.”

“Go hard or go home,” Jos says, as he always says, and Max feels both desperate and lost at once. He absently swipes through his 'phone and when Carlos' name pops up, it's like some kind of magic spell. An inopportune one, because Max just knows he's going to-

“What?” he says. “What is it. I – do you want to play some game or something now? Because I am tired of games. I am tired of whatever it is. I know you said you accept me, accept this, but I don't. I don't accept it. And you are the only one who knows. I need you to help me accept it because I can't. And maybe that's unfair because you didn't ask to be told, but fuck, Carlos, I told you something huge, you don't get to just be like, we're cool, don't worry. I mean, you do, because that's great, but. You also don't.”

There's a pause that pauses long enough to cause Max to start leafing through his memory to check that he doesn't know anyone else called Carlos. That hasn't just sort of come out to another person called Carlos, not that it could get much worse for him having just yelled at his friend.

Just when he's about to apologise, Carlos says, “OK. That's fair. Do you want to get a milkshake? We can talk in my room.”

“No,” Max says. “I don't want that. I don't want a milkshake. I want to fucking kiss you, OK. I want to kiss you.”

The silence descends once more.

**SPA FRANCORCHAMPS (AUGUST 2015)**

**Carlos**

The problem with not talking, Carlos is beginning to realise, is that it leads to a whole lot more not talking. And then that just breeds more and more not talking (untalking?) until the whole place is filled with silence, and although people say that an omission isn't the same as a positive act it's bloody the same thing in Carlos' view. At least, when the result is the same. The bigger problem is that with Max here, and the media here, and Jos here, and – it feels like – the entire world here, it's hard to get Max on his own to discuss what happened before the break.

It isn't that Carlos didn't try to text. He definitely drafted a few texts. Reworded them. Tried to make himself send them. But he's aware that there aren't any points for trying, that Max probably wouldn't believe that he had tried in any event, and they're left with this oppressive weight of absolutely nothing. What kills him is that Max isn't even being cold. He's not being all frigid and brittle and arctic, like Carlos was expecting, but instead horribly normal. He's looking through Carlos. Talking through him. He's completely emotionally checked out. Throughout August, Carlos has been reassuring himself that it would all be alright once they met up in Belgium. They would talk, laugh, discuss it, make everything feel normal again. He's rubbish at texts. He's rubbish at e-mails. And it's not the sort of thing you can 'phone about, once two weeks have gone by. “Hi, Jos. Can I speak to your son about his latent homosexuality? Thanks.”

No.

So.

Max is sitting on his perch, as Jos likes to call it, surveying his side of the garage. Carlos can see his little pointy feet doing that infuriating pointing thing that is Max's way (feet! Why?) but he doesn't dare approach him. Max isn't looking his way. He isn't deliberately checking his Twitter, or his texts, or his hair in the reverse-camera-view-thing, either. He wants Carlos to know that he has nothing in particular to do that would keep him from talking to Carlos. He's just not talking to Carlos. By choice. As if that's a thing that he actually wants to do. Or doesn't want to do. And again, it brings Carlos back to the heft of the negative – Max's not wanting to talk to him is bigger than this room, stronger than the car, sadder than – well. Something really, really sad.

Alternatively, Carlos reminds himself, he could be daydreaming about food and totally not even thinking about you in the damn first place.

It's just that, in his own silly, naïve way, he likes to think that he knows Max. He knows that it's not anything so mundane. It's that he's deliberately sending him a message. Be silent with me, hang up on me, say nothing to me of that thing that I revealed – and I will blank you so hard you'll wish you could hire a medium to speak to me.

Not that Max is dead.

Carlos knows what he means.

***

The least the universe could do, Carlos thinks, if it's going to give you another DNF, is to give you a night of commiserating with Doutzen Kroes. The very least.

Instead, he's treated to a massage. Sadly, it isn't from Doutzen's breasts, or even a less appealing part of Doutzen, and to be honest it's not even a massage so much as it's a pummelling from his physio, but at this point, how much worse could his life really get?

“Stop resisting,” Bradley says. He's running his palms up and down Carlos' calves, and Carlos is just thinking, I'm fucking not fucking resisting anything, when Bradley starts to laugh. “I can literally feel you doing it.”

“My calves hurt,” Carlos whinges.

“Yes. That's what I'm trying to sort out, mate.”

“They need to resist. Maybe that's a thing. Medically. Maybe they need to resist, in order to heal.”

“That is bollocks,” Bradley says, cheerfully.

“You don't know.”

“I do know. I am trained in this sort of thing.”

“Nobody knows everything.”

“I know this. Look, just. Stop resisting. Try to stop resisting, at least, because I can't do you any good if you keep tightening up like this. And you'll give yourself cramp.”

“I'm not doing it on purpose!”

“Alright, hey. OK.” There's a pause, whilst the dust settles. “Look. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on. This goes beyond normal DNF shit.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I've done this job for 15 years and that's a lot of DNFs and a lot of calves.”

“Imagine if you were massaging calves. You know, like, baby cows. That'd be both cute and funny.”

“You're trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

“Fuck.”

Carlos sighs. He's not known Bradley very long, but he likes him. He doesn't brook any shit, or take any opposition, or whatever the phrase is. He's honest and he helps, he really does try to help. It means a lot, in Carlos' world, where you have to consider these things pretty seriously. You never really know who your friends are.

“Can you be like a priest?” he asks.

“A what?”

“A priest. Like in church.”

“Yes. I – I know what a priest is. What do you mean? Forgive your sins? Quote the Bible from memory? You might need to see an actual priest, mate. But you know, I was CoE as a lad, I can give it a go.”

“Sea-oh-ee?”

“Church of England.”

“Is that like Catholics?”

“Not since Henry VIII, mate.”

“Right,” Carlos says. “I really need a priest.”

“What have you actually done?”

“Nothing like that! I haven't murdered someone!”

“I'm pleased to hear it.”

“It's just the kinda thing you tell a priest. Or a doctor.”

“...Are you sick?”

“No, but both of those people have to keep a secret, you know? They can't tell anyone. Well, your mum too, I guess, but my mum can't keep secrets to save her life. She wants all the gossip right now about everyone. So. You know. I need someone who can shut up.”

“I can do that.”

“But can you? Can you? What if I tell you something really outrageous, like... like, I sucked off a horse?”

“Have you sucked off a horse?”

“No.”

“If you're an equinophile, I promise to keep it to myself.”

“I don't suck off horses!”

“The animal kingdom is most relieved.”

“OK, but you have to promise that you won't tell anyone.”

“I won't tell anyone.”

“No, you have to really promise. Like on Manchester City.”

“Christ, you have killed someone.”

“I haven't!”

“Alright, alright.” Bradley pauses, working the tips of his fingers into Carlos' knees, the little bony ligaments by the sides that tweak and ache and which love a bloody good press. Carlos had almost forgotten that he was still massaging– and sure enough, his legs have relaxed some. “I swear on all that is holy – i.e. my blessed football team – that I will not tell a soul of which I am about to hear.”

“Say it properly!”

“That was saying it properly!”

“I didn't understand it!”

“OK. I swear on my beloved football team that I will keep the secret.”

“OK,” Carlos says. “And if you do tell it, they will be relegated.”

Bradley groans. “You are hurting me.”

“Good,” Carlos says. “The tables are turned.”

He pauses, sucking in breath, then finds that it's as if he's on top of a mountain, on a plank or something, about to bungee jump off it. All he wants is to get it over with.

“A friend told me something, and it really shocked me. I was so shocked. And I didn't know what to say, which is kinda unusual for me, because I can always think of something. But I didn't know what to say here. And it wasn't because – I wasn't upset, or disgusted, at what they told me. I am now thinking, they probably think that. But that wasn't it. I was just really shocked. And so I kinda closed off, you know? I didn't say anything, at all, and then the silence went on too long. And I didn't know what to do, so I hung up on them.”

Bradley pauses, then resumes, the massage. He has at least the decency not to ask whether that is truly it, and Carlos is grateful for it.

“OK,” he says. “So what are things like now?”

“I don't know. We aren't really talking.”

“Have you talked since you hung up?”

“No. Just like, you know. Hellos and how are yous. And asking about the break. But not really.”

“Have you apologised?”

“No. I know that's really bad. I just – I don't know what to say. And it's so much worse because I have let it go on so much. So now it's really much harder to know what to say.”

“Have you tried just being honest?”

“Saying I was shocked and became silent for one month because I was so shocked?”

“Sure. It just seems to me that it's the best explanation, because it's the truth.”

“I don't think he'll believe it.”

“Why wouldn't he?”

“Because it sounds so stupid. Like: who is so shocked they don't reply for a month? I hung up the 'phone. And never 'phoned back. That's not normal.”

“Actually, when the missus was pregnant with our third, I had this weird out-of-body experience, you know? Like severe shock. I couldn't react. It wasn't that I wasn't happy, or that I was sad, but I just got very overwhelmed. And I couldn't say anything. She was pretty upset for a while.”

“Did you tell her the truth?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“Did she believe it?”

“She was happy to. The alternative was that I was upset by it, or didn't want another child. None of that was true, obviously. But we didn't... we had agreed that two would be it, and I hadn't... we hadn't discussed it. It was a huge shock. And the timing was difficult. But yes, the thing she was thinking was that I wanted her to – you know. To end it. And that would've been... devastating, for us both. So she was relieved that all it had been was a kind of shock. She hadn't seen me like that before.”

“OK,” Carlos says. “So she doesn't say to you now, remember when you pretended you were shocked when actually you were angry or upset?”

“No,” Bradley says. “We don't have that sort of relationship. That'd be pretty messed up. I'm not saying she was all immediately throwing herself on me with delight, you know. She was pissed off. But she believed me, because she believes that I tell her the truth. Do you tell your friend the truth?”

“Yeah,” Carlos says. “I mean. I don't lie to him.”

“Why the qualification?”

“The what?”

“You said 'I mean'. It's like saying, 'yes, but...' or 'I didn't do that, except...'”

“It sounds like an excuse?”

“It sounds like you don't lie, but on the other hand you do something else just as bad.”

“No, I don't – I don't know. Is not saying every single thing a lie?”

“No. But it depends on the thing.”

“So you tell Rachel everything?”

“I tell her the important things. I ask myself: if I don't tell her that, am I basically lying?”

“You can't lie without saying the lie.”

“Yes, you can. You can let someone believe something that isn't true. By not correcting it, you've kept the lie going. OK, so it's not the same as making the lie up, but it's letting it go on.”

“It's a negative,” Carlos says. “Not a positive act.”

“It's an omission,” Bradley agrees. “But the intention behind it is deception. That's lying. OK, do I tell Rachel every detail of my day? No, because she'd never have sex with me again. And because most of it is boring as hell. But I tell her the stuff that, if I didn't tell her it, I would feel like a liar.”

“How do you know what makes you feel like a liar?”

Bradley pauses. He's moved onto the small of Carlos' back, which is shifting delightedly, muscles starting to uncurl their clenched cold fingers. “I guess I think about us laughing together. Shit, that sounds corny, but I do. I think about the moments we have where we're just killing ourselves laughing, and whether that moment would be different if she knew what I knew, and whether it would change the moment. Whether we wouldn't be laughing together if she knew. Because then I'm not being true. I'm letting her believe that things are one way, when they actually aren't. I'm letting her believe in something that's not true. And if she knew, that would hurt her. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of,” Carlos says. “But you know her really well. I don't know my friend that well.”

“OK,” Bradley says. “So the basic litmus test is – would I want to know, if the situation were reversed? Would I want to know what you know? Would you want to be told? If your friend had your feelings-”

“They aren't feelings.”

“If your friend thought what you are thinking, then. Would you want him to tell you?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“There's your answer.”

“You know what I wish?”

“I wish that I were getting paid double-time to massage you and give you counselling.”

“Fuck off,” Carlos says, but he's laughing.

“What do you wish?”

“I wish that you could tell people stuff by massaging them. You know how you can tell them something with a touch? Like: you're hot, I want you. Kiss me. I wish you could tell people the more complicated stuff just through massage. Then I wouldn't have to say any of it. And he would just understand.”

“You're imagining a world where we're all constantly rubbing one another.”

“That makes it sound so dirty!”

“You said it, not me.”

“You know what I mean, though!”

“No, mate. I'd rather just have the conversation.”

“If I write it down, can you tell him, then?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Bradley?”

“What.”

“Thanks. For the legs and the head. That's like that song, you know. Head, shoulders knees and toes. Except that it's head, legs... and nothing else.”

“Carlos, you're a wicked bloke, but I really don't get you most of the time.”

“It's OK,” Carlos says. “I get that a lot.”

 

**Max**

Max is thinking about the pulled pork sandwich he had last night. It was, after all, a really good sandwich. And he hasn't had many good sandwiches in his lifetime. A part of him resents that, actually. He feels as though he should have had more good sandwiches. Compared to the people he knows, he's really below average on the good sandwich scale. And he's a Formula 1 driver now! You're supposed to be swimming in sandwiches at that point – fighting them off with a fork – and it just-

If Carlos ambles around in a complete fucking circle one more time.

Max knows he's there. Everyone knows he's there. He's like a wasp at a picnic except twice as annoying. All he can see from his current vantage point is Carlos' fucking hair. His long, dark chocolate, looks good sweaty, and falls into his beautiful brown eyes ,hair. It's all swept back from his eyes, not that that's doing anything to enforce better behaviour. Carlos keeps agitatedly sweeping it back, which is both ineffective and irritating because it reminds Max that he has fingers, and Max doesn't want to think about the fact that Carlos has fingers, because that leads to extremely good sandwiches.

OK, he mutters. You have to accept that you're not actually thinking about sandwiches here.

But if he were thinking about sandwiches – and it certainly feels safer – he would be contemplating the fact that he's spent his entire life having to make his own sandwich. A buffet lifestyle. And it's not that he's complaining, really, because you do get a sandwich at the end of the day. But sometimes, he wouldn't mind being served a sandwich. A nice person – not Carlos – bringing the sandwich to him. So that he didn't have to go and make the sandwich himself.

What's the point in being a wunderkind – as Franz embarrassingly referred to him on the 'phone with Jos the other day – if nobody will give you a fucking sandwich?

Carlos is trying to look at if his trekking about the garage is accidental, aimless. He's resorted to the posture so familiar to Max – the idle young man, hip cocked, studious face. Trying to make like the world is incredibly interesting, like he hasn't noticed the other young man sitting over there, pretending that he doesn't exist. 

It isn't fair, Max knows that. Behind the anger that Carlos hung up the fucking 'phone, beyond the rage that he never contacted him again over the break, he knows it isn't fair of him to judge Carlos. He put too much on him. He revealed too much. And what do you say, when it's not reciprocated, anyway? What would he say? But at the same time, Max needs to scrape some kind of dignity off the floor, even if he has to use his fingernails to do it. Anything else is unthinkable. So, to do that, he has to pretend that Carlos doesn't exist. That no beautiful man existed, to have prompted him to say what he did, to have felt what he felt. Because if Carlos didn't exist, doesn't exist – then neither does he, and neither did that moment where everything went so utterly fucking tits up.

***

You can't really be depressed at Spa, even with a grid penalty. If anything, it only makes it more fun, because you have more of an impetus to overtake. And Max may be rubbish at social interaction with attractive men, and he may say things he regrets to his teammates, and he may be absolutely incapable of being straight, but at least he knows how to overtake.

And let's face it, there's no way he's prepared to finish 18th.

Some of the moves are a bit risky, he reflects afterwards, but then that's what makes him feel alive. That's when he knows himself. In the slip and slide of the tyres, the acceleration that tears the muscles away from the bones, the sheer force of flying pushing him back into his seat like the fingers touching on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in that painting, the one that reminds him of Zeus with the lightning bolts. That. That's racing. It's supernatural, it's mythological, it's the closest he's been to God.

And the roar in his heart when he sneaks into a gap that by all accounts shouldn't really be there, that is only there because he's forged it by grit and by muscle, by daring and nerve, there's something divine about that, too. So he won't hear it from Jos. He won't hear it from anyone. This is living, this is breathing, this is everything. And nobody is going to tell him how or how not to go about it

**MONZA (SEPTEMBER 2015)**

**Max**

It's late and – for Italy – surprisingly cold in the garage. It's always kept cool, the cars prefer it that way even if the humans don't, but this evening feels worse than usual. He roots about on the shelf in the garage as he leaves and pulls down a scarf, tying it around his neck as he makes to leave. It's an evening in the motorhome with his dad, who is responding to the grid penalties with all of the grace of a giraffe on ice-skates.

When he steps out into the cool air, he draws the scarf tighter around his neck and inhales, rubbing his hands together. He gets five steps away before realising, with a shock that sends his temperature plummeting down all the more, that the scarf isn't his. It has that cinder toffee and Diesel aftershave scent melting pot that Max knows so horribly well. As much as he wants to throw the scarf away from him, the bigger part of him wants to hold it ever closer, thinking and knowing and aching because it's the closest he's ever going to get. And that, he tells himself, is completely pathetic.

“Hey,” Carlos says, stepping out onto the pathway in front of him and scaring the living shit out of him.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he says. It's like Beetlejuice, which he's seen even though it's stupidly old. You think of someone and then they appear. As if the scent of him has brought him here on the wind. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the fog within.

“No. Carlos. I don't know anyone called Phuc.”

“Carlos.”

“Sorry, that was a bad joke. But at least you got my name right that time!”

“What do you want?”

“Sorry I scared you. I was waiting for you.”

“I figured that. Any particular reason? We've been together all day. You haven't said a thing to me.” Max hates how petty it sounds – like he's keeping track. He doesn't want to be keeping track. He'd give anything not to be keeping track.

“Yeah, well. I thought I couldn't say it in front of the team, and... yeah. I guessed I chicken out.”

“Chickened.”

“Huh?”

“Chickened out. It's a past tense chicken.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just. OK, say it. Whatever you have to say.”

Max figures that folding his arms will make him look much more adult than he feels, which is more along the lines of foot-stomping. It seems to work, because Carlos' eyes flick up, then down, in a look that teenage boys – men – should really patent, because it's something Max has seen five million times before and he's only been on the planet seventeen years. It's the look of considering the likelihood of being beaten up. Max has never been in a fight. His dad has taught him how to throw a punch but he's honestly always hoped he'd never have to bother. It's just that he doesn't want Carlos to know that.

Carlos looks like he wants to take a step back, but holds his ground. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“What, do you not want to say it here either? You need a stage and I can sit in the audience and watch?”

“I think we might be heard here.”

“Fine. Jesus. Where do you want to go?”

“OK, I have an idea, but you have to trust me.”

Max snorts and Carlos winces with it, as if he had thrown a punch. It hurts Max, somewhere in his stomach, to see it. “I trust you,” he says, all too quickly, and though it doesn't entirely remove the smudge of pain from Carlos' eyes, the rapidity at least cheers him up a bit.

“OK,” he says. “It's like Aladdin. You know – do you trust me?”

“Haven't seen it.”

“You are not properly developed, Max.”

“Thanks. Where are we going then?”

“A whole new world.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

***

As it turns out, it sort of is a whole new world. Or a whole old world. Not caring about what his dad will say – because he could call and get one lecture now and another later, or just put it off until then – he follows Carlos through the twilight world of the Monza circuit on a Thursday. They're completely alone but for the forests, but for the creatures stirring inside, but for the ghosts that go back decades and decades, whispering their lap times still. Max almost thinks that he can smell the petrol.

“Do you feel that?” Carlos says, quietly.

“What?”

“The history,” Carlos says, simply.

“Yes.”

One of the things he likes about Carlos is that he has none of the Dutch standoffish teenage behaviour. He doesn't have to pretend not to care. He does care. And he's open with it. Which makes the past month all the more painful to consider, but – that's something to put away, like his dad. Like his future. Like the realities he'll have to face one day, no more attractive than facing his dad right now.

“I've felt it a lot today,” Carlos says. “And that's kinda – it's not something we get too much, because the team is new, and we're new, and the circuits – a lot of them – are new too. And this is older than us, older than our parents. Our grandfathers could've raced here. You know? And now we're here. We're the latest in this long line of people who wanted to do what we're doing. So that's why I wanted to walk here.”

“I understand,” Max says. “But I don't think you should be climbing over that.”

Carlos is hauling himself over a small leafy barrier, which is a pretty pathetic effort at restraining a young Spaniard, all in all. Max watches him disappear behind it, then stride off, whistling outrageously. Max realises just where this whole new world is.

“I – Carlos. We'll get caught.”

“So?”

“So. You know. My dad's here.”

“Your dad has more to worry about catching you doing, than this. Come on.”

Max rolls back on his heels, staring at the darkening sky. The sun is slipping below the trees and the temperature is chilling by the second. He tightens his scarf, looks across the void into Carlos' eyes, so like the sky, so unfathomable and fucking enormous and just. He wanted to be an astronaut as a kid.

“Is it worth it? What you want to say to me?”

Carlos sighs, but not unkindly. Not unhappily. Just with the softness of emotion. And then he says, “Max, I wouldn't ask you to if it weren't.”

Max climbs over the barrier. The sun is barely touching them now, which brings history right to the foreground as the Pista di Alta Velocità emerges into view. Max has seen it before; on television, in pictures, being here before. But seeing it completely empty, in the near-darkness, with Carlos trying to get purchase on it as he climbs, Max is transported back to a time that's full of roaring cars and fearless heroism, of screaming engines and brilliant summer sun. Laurel wreaths and champagne. It's everything he's ever dreamed of. It's everything his dad ever dreamed of. And he's doing it now, for both of them.

“I come I see I conquer!” Carlos says, grabbing hold of railing at the top of the banking as he lowers himself to the ground. He gets comfortable and then offers Max a hand, moreorless yanks him up beside him. Max buries himself into the steel barrier, feeling the solidity of it press into his back and the thick rough banking beneath his feet. It all seems warm to him, even though it probably isn't.

“This is amazing,” he says.

“I know. And that's why I wanted for you to come here to listen to me. Because I have been bad to you, and I want to say good things. And I want them – I want to say them here, when it is in this place, that is special. So that they help to make what I said before – what I did not say before – less... bad. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Max says. “I've learned to speak you.”

“OK. So I have been thinking a lot about the past month.”

“You know you don't have to say stuff now, just because I said it, right? We can just agree to forget it.”

“I don't want to do that,” Carlos says.

“I don't either. I'm just saying-”

“Max, you talk like you drive. Always the overtaking. Nobody else has a chance to speak!” Carlos grins, nudging their  
shoulders together. Max grimaces.

“I gave you a chance,” he points out. The smile vanishes.

“OK,” Carlos says. “Fair.”

“Just. OK. Sorry. I'm going to let you talk. I am. I promise.”

“I don't say things because of no reason. I also don't say nothing because of no reason. Do you know what I mean? I didn't say nothing when you told me what you did because I was shocked. Maybe I should not have been. Maybe I had been – maybe there had been signs, or – I don't know, maybe I missed something. I was so surprised. And not just because I wasn't expecting what you said. That was a part, yes. But also it was because it was very hard for me, having felt what I feel, to hear it, because things were... suddenly I could possibly act. When before I was not acting.”

“You've lost me.”

“Alright. OK. Sorry. I will try to explain better. I have been thinking about the difference between doing a thing and not doing a thing. Like, me being silent wasn't any help to you. And the silence was more painful for you than me saying something. I learned this because we have not been talking this week – and it felt much worse than if we had been. Much louder. And so I start to think, what it was like for you, when I was silent and then I hung up? It must have been scary. Scarier than if I started screaming.”

“It sucked,” Max says.

“Yeah. So – I want to explain that. I was shocked because I didn't expect it. But also because I have been thinking the same thing sometimes. So I was shocked by you saying what you did. I have been thinking sometimes, I want to kiss you.”

Max locks eyes with him. The sun has completely dropped below the skyline and they cast shadows of themselves down the banking, an interlocking dark picture of boyhood and dreaming and a moment that Max will never forget. He can't even breathe.

“Why didn't you just say it back?”

“Because I was – I didn't know how to. I didn't have words in my mouth. I just hung up because I was scared. It's shit and stupid and I feel terrible for it. You don't even know. But I didn't want you to not know. Because you said it to me, and I didn't want to lie to you by not saying it also.”

“OK,” Max says, trying to breathe. “OK. That – yeah. That makes sense. I mean. I didn't. I kinda feel like you did, I guess. I wasn't expecting this.”

“I felt like not saying it too was like – more strong than saying it. Lying was bigger than honesty. Even though lying was silence and honesty was talking. I have been thinking a lot about this. It's hard to explain in English.”

“Doing nothing is more difficult than doing something?” Max tries.

“Saying nothing is harder than saying something,” Carlos agrees.

“Not doing a thing is worse than doing a thing,” Max thinks, aloud.

“Yes.” Carlos says. “Although it depends on the thing. If it was illegal-”

He never gets to finish the sentence, or define the illegal thing he was thinking of, though Max thinks he could have a good guess. He never gets to say anything – somewhat ironically – because Max has pressed his body forward and their shadows interlock still more with the touch of their lips together.

And then Carlos opens his lips, hungry and at once language-less, at once they are one and the same, a being of pure matter and need. And as Carlos moans into the kiss, longing and lusting, Max grabs the base of his skull with both hands and kisses him all the harder.

It's harder not to kiss than it is to kiss.

***

They finish next to one another in Monza, and that's pretty much fine with Max.

Well. He'd prefer to be just ahead, but still.

There are other things on his mind.

**SINGAPORE (SEPTEMBER 2015)**

**Max**

“We need to do something,” Jos says. “You've made your mark, OK, that's all well and good. But you've only been in the points four times. It's the same as Carlos, yes, I know. But you didn't come into this to be the same as Carlos. And neither did I. So we need to try to get back to Hungary – we need to go back to that place. Because we've had this discussion before, haven't we, about not stagnating?”

Max is standing opposite him in the narrow corridor. They are interrupted constantly by a stream of Toro Rosso guys, some of whom Max is becoming friends with, and a part of him is embarrassed, for the first time in his life, that they're overhearing this. What he knows is ambition, is shared familial pride – it feels a bit different, now that he's trying to establish that he's older than he is. He feels very young, all of a sudden, but he can't have two arguments at the same time, so he has to choose the easier of the two.

“Nothing has changed,” he says. “I am doing the same thing-”

“That's my point. Maybe that approach isn't the right thing. Maybe you need to switch it about a bit.”

“I don't think so,” Max says. “I think it's the right approach. I just need to take each race at a time and keep pushing. I don't think there was anything different about Hungary except that the situation – I was able to get higher up the grid, I was able to take advantage of more overtaking opportunities, you know. It's what I do every time though.”

“I just don't want you to lose out to this friend of yours,” Jos says. “Remember that there's only one number one, yes? Look at what happened to Vergne. You don't want that to be you, watching Carlos go on and having to find something else to do instead.”

“He's my friend but not on track,” Max says, stung. “I'm not getting confused about it.”

“I don't think it's a good idea to get so close,” Jos says.

“OK,” Max says. “But it doesn't affect me.”

“Doesn't it? You're not as bold when you're overtaking him.”

“Nobody is. It's your teammate. Come on, dad. You know that.”

“Maybe we should talk about this when you're less touchy about it.”

“I'm not touchy.”

Jos rubs his nose with the palm of his thumb, eyeing Max through narrowed eyes. Max hopes – prays – that he isn't the shade of scarlet that he feels like he might be. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could be cooler about this. Laugh and shrug it off. But he and his dad don't have that kind of relationship all the time, not anymore.

“The season's coming to an end,” Jos says. “It's been hard on you, I know. You'll be looking forward to the winter, when you can come and be at home, with your family. Reflect.”

Max doesn't want to bring up the snowboarding trip that's in the back of his mind. He just nods.

***

“Push hard on Perez, otherwise we'll have to swap,” Xavi says.

“I'm not gonna swap,” Max says, then swears. He wishes his hands weren't sweating. He wishes everything weren't sweating, really, but his dad's voice is echoing in the back of his head. Never let a guy past you. Not unless you're walking dead. Never let them see your weakness. Never show them the back of your neck. And Max isn't walking dead. His engine failed on him at the start. He's worked his way back up from a lap down and he hasn't sweated his balls off doing that to hand something on a plate to Carlos. Not a fucking chance.

“OK,” Xavi comes back. “You need to listen. We need you to switch positions.”

The answer is as immediate as it is negative. In the back of his head, he thinks: my dad will kick me in the fucking nuts.

“Max, just do it.”

Xavi is tired of this.

Max is tireder.

Is nobody on the pit-wall watching him? Do they not see what he's managed to do? Why is it necessary to even let Carlos through; it isn't like he's going to be able to challenge the guys in front. Max knows because he can't, and if he can't, he doesn't see how Carlos is going to do it. So he holds firm.

He also hates being told to just do something. He'll bring that up, later.

It goes back and forth for a while and eventually the team seems to get the message that short of lassoing him on the main straight, he's not moving a damn muscle, and it gets left at that. End result, both cars in the points, but he crosses the line first. And really, that's all that matters.

He's vindicated by the team afterwards. Not that it matters as much as seeing his dad smiling like that, hearing him agree that he'd have kicked him where the sun don't shine.

***

Max is bolshy when Carlos comes to see him. Carlos has a towel around his neck and a look of vague protectiveness in his eyes, as if he's preparing for a fight while disapproving of the fact that he even has to think about it. He's fresh out of the shower and Max thinks he could probably feel the heat coming off him, if he stepped too close. He's determined not to do it.

“So,” Carlos says. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Max says. “But I haven't time for a lecture.”

Carlos blinks. “I don't want to lecture you. I want to discuss it, like adults. Can we do that?”

“Sure.”

Max closes the door behind him, goes to sit on his bed and purposefully does not invite Carlos to sit down next to him. That would lead to distracted thoughts, to showing the back of his neck. He's not doing that anymore. The way his dad smiled at him – that was Hungary, and he's forgotten it. Maybe he is softening too much. Maybe, maybe. Maybe a new approach really is needed.

“OK, so what was going on there from your side?” Carlos says, sitting on the floor.

“I wasn't going to let you through. They asked, I said no.”

“What did they say?”

“Just do it. So, yeah. I wasn't gonna just do that. I couldn't overtake Checo, there's no way you were going to.”

“You could've given me a chance to do it. You were holding me up. I was letting the car rest through most of the race because I was told you were gonna move over.”

“Then you should know me better. I don't just let you through. Maybe for you it's OK to do that-”

“I did that in – what, Malaysia and Monaco, because we were on different strategies. It was the best thing for the team. I wouldn't let you through just because I'm rolling over, but I'm a team player. It was selfish, today. I can be selfish too but there was no point in it today.”

“Of course there was a point,” Max says. “I finished ahead of you.”

“I could've tried for seventh, for the team.”

“You wouldn't have been able to.”

“That's not up to you to decide!”

“It is when it's my car and my engineer. I do know how to use the word 'no'.”

Carlos is talking with his hands now, a sure sign of his being rattled. His eyes are dark and enormous and lidded with the weight of incredulous eyebrows and Max thinks, good, fucking good, that for once you're on the back foot here. You make me so fucking confused for so long and now you are confused right back. Verstappen – 1.

“OK but I would have let you back through if I couldn't do it. That was the point. Like what happened in Monaco.”

“And what, I waste all that time sitting in your dirty air, watching you do something you can't do?”

“Yeah, because it's not your decision to say I can't do it, so you're going to hold me up!”

“Then you should've overtaken me.”

“You know how difficult that is from where I was. I would've been ahead of you if I'd been putting in the laps, but I didn't think I had to.”

“That's not my problem,” Max says, shrugging. It incenses Carlos, so he does it again. “You keep saying all these things like it's up to me to make your race, and it isn't. I don't race for you. I don't race for anyone else.”

“We're in a fucking team, Max,” Carlos says. “If we're on different strategies, we do the best thing for the team. You don't just fuck your teammate because you want to come 8th and not 9th, or whatever.”

“And I don't ask to be given 8th place, just because I can't overtake on the same strategy. I was ahead of you. I worked my arse off. Next time, just overtake me. Christ, I can't believe this.”

Carlos stands up, backing himself up against the door, putting his hands up to his hair. “We weren't on the same strategy! I had fresher tyres! I could've gone after Checo – and we need all those points, as a team. Maybe for you the difference between 8th and 9th is nothing, but you stopped the team having a chance at 7th so that you could get that 8th, so I don't think you know what the fuck you're saying!”

“The team wouldn't have got 7th in a million years,” Max says, standing as well, because he won't be lectured, not by someone barely 3 years older than him, not by someone like Carlos who after all is only out for himself, too. “I was there. You could've had tyres fresher than a fucking Swiss lake, and you weren't getting passed him. His top line speed was too much. I couldn't get close, and your tyres would have made no fucking difference.”

“Why do you not realise that you are not God? This is not your decision! The team made the decision and you should do as they say, because they have all the facts, not you!”

“I don't need facts. I was there.”

“Oh, fuck, Max – sometimes, you are so fucking ridiculous. You believe so much in your own legend. You are Max and you can't be wrong. Yes? The team has facts that you don't. Always. You think you are above everyone.”

“I think that I care more about me than about the team, sure,” Max says. “I was here before the team – as a person – and I'll be here after it.”

“You wouldn't be in Formula 1 but for this team!”

“Doesn't mean I owe them my throat, the shirt off my back. I care about me. My career. My results. If you wanna be a team player, whatever, do it. You'll get Employee of the Month. I want to be a world champion.”

“And I don't?”

“I don't know,” Max says. “It's none of my business. But I don't think world champions move over.”

“You're not a world champion, Max, for fuck's sake!”

“Dress for the job you want, then.”

“You don't think,” Carlos says. “You are just – you just react, to everything. You never think about things, question whether someone knows more. You just do whatever you want.”

“Yep. And that's why I'm beating you.”

Max thinks, fleetingly, that Carlos really might hit him. That he might have to rely on those skills, learned long ago from his dad, the ones that feel like rubber deep in the muscles. He hopes that he doesn't have to. But Carlos just stares at him, disgust in the half-sneer of the lip, and then he shakes his head.

“I can't even talk to you like this,” Carlos says. “You are such a child.”

“Yeah?” Max says. “What precisely does that make you, then?”

“Don't push me,” Carlos says. “Don't.”

“No,” Max says. “You can't take it.”

“I mean it, Max. Don't.”

Max shrugs. “You know where the door is.”

Carlos recoils from him, throws his hands up, and proves that indeed, he does know a door where he sees one. And a part of Max thinks – maybe a step too far? – but then. But then, you have to keep throwing down the gauntlet, in Formula 1. You have to just keep on doing it. Otherwise, nobody knows that they have to respect you. 

Carlos will get it. Eventually.

The door slams, and Max winces, wobbles on the spot.

Eventually.

**SUZUKA (OCTOBER 2015)**

**Max**

By the time they fly out to Japan, Carlos is still barely speaking to him. Max doesn't know if it's because his dad has gone home, or because the heat of Singapore has left him, or whether he's just had enough sleep, but he feels able to see the world differently. He knows that he's no longer as frantic, because he's reading Carlos' interview on the plane and his head isn't exploding with anger.

_My approach will not change. I now know more what Max is about. He perhaps likes to play the bad boy role a bit more but I knew this and now he has demonstrated it._

Max contemplates this, bristling, but far beneath the boiling point. He forces his face into a mask of intrigued calm as he studies the words.

_I'm a team player but it's not really going to change my approach... When I need to be selfish, don't worry, I will be, but so far I have not had the situation to show my selfishness because I've trusted them and every time they called for swaps I've done it. If you want me to give examples, in Malaysia on the last stint when Max overtook me it was not an overtake, I let him by. Everyone was like 'Oh what a great move', and when I saw the news I was like 'Please, I let him by'._

Not Max's interpretation of events, but hey: it takes all colours to make a world! The joy of diversity! The need for differences of opinion, for a variety of discourse– 

oh, fuck it, he thinks. What a prick.

But then, he probably deserves it.

The thing about Carlos, Max is realising, is that he has a long fuse. Max has known a few Spaniards, and whilst he's hesitant to place people in geographical boxes, Carlos doesn't meet his image of the conventional Mediterranean guy. It isn't that he isn't passionate or ambitious, of course, but they all are. It isn't that he talks with his hands in his lap, because he definitely doesn't. It's that his attitude to things tends towards the languid. He enjoys everything that he does, he makes pleasure a priority. It's disorganised hedonism. Carlos lives like he drives; hands relaxed, fingers stretched out to receive the vibrations. That's how he goes through life. He would never hold onto a steering wheel as a Monaco barrier approached. No matter what his dad had told him.

To get Carlos to speak like this, he's really gotten under his skin. Carlos doesn't turn to anger quickly, or frequently. It goes against his ethos as a pleasure-seeker. Max stretches out his legs and thinks. His mum once told him to appreciate the people who aren't like him; who can laugh at life, who can let life try to beat them half to death and quietly give it the finger, seeking out the next thing that'll make them happy. They're content. They stop when they find. Max never stops, not for one moment. He never understood what his mum meant, because such people drain ambition, surely? They distract you from what's important. Now, he gets it.

The seatbelt signs are on, but that doesn't stop him. He climbs out of his seat, slides down the narrow aisle of the plane and flops down into the empty seat besides Carlos. Carlos has enormous headphones on and is playing what looks suspiciously like Candy Crush on his iPad. He glances up at Max, clearly expecting him to be someone else, then blinks hugely. It's so endearing that Max wants to punch him.

“So,” he says.

Carlos lifts his headphones down around his neck and looks at Max expectantly. He no longer looks surprised; guarded, maybe. Unimpressed.

“I read this interview you did,” Max says. It comes out more combatant than he really hoped for, and Carlos sighs.

“Max, I don't care. I don't. If you want to be angry about it, please go away and do that. I'm not fighting with you about it. Every word of it was true. Please just go away and talk to your dad about it or something. I'm focusing on me here.”

“I wasn't going to shout about it!”

“OK,” Carlos says. “Again, I don't care.”

“I was actually going to apologise.”

The return of the surprised look.

“OK,” Carlos says. “OK, yes, I care about that. Go on.”

“Well. I mean, I don't agree with it, obviously, but I read it and I was thinking about us. And what I did in Singapore was mean. It was uncalled for. I don't mean the refusing to move over – I'm not apologising for that and I never will-”

“Your apologies are fucking terrible,” Carlos says.

“Shut up and let me finish.”

“Ai, ai, OK.”

“I mean the conversation we had in the room afterwards. I don't want – I know we both care and we're bound to argue about what happens on track, but I don't – I went too far. I was trying to get you to react. I don't know why, but I was. And I don't like that part of me.”

Carlos nods. “OK,” he says. “I agree. You have a dick part of you. And it is bad.”

“Right,” Max says. “I mean, you know. Yeah. I don't like to admit that. I don't. Because sometimes it's good, you know? It's got me where I am. But it also means that I say shitty things and I don't want to do that to you. I like you. I really do. Even if you do interviews and call me a bad boy, which honestly sounds a bit like flirting...”

“I was definitely not flirting,” Carlos says. “I never liked bad boys, you know. I liked good boys.”

“Was the guy who gave you orange juice a good boy?”

“He was. And you can stop being jealous about that, because it happened and it's not happening now and it's none of your business.”

“Alright,” Max says. “I'll try.”

“Good.”

“So something happened?”

“I am not talking to you about this until you have got my trust,” Carlos says. “I don't think you deserve to know this yet. Do you?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I guess not.”

“Good.”

“But you will tell me?”

“If I feel comfortable,” Carlos says. “You can't ask more than that.”

There's silence for a moment, as they both think. Max realises that whoever is sitting here, whoever Carlos thinks he was when he sat down, will probably be back any moment. And there really isn't time to waste. But all the words he wants to say are stuck in a sticky meatball in his stomach and he doesn't know how to untangle them into romantic smooth spaghetti.

“I hate to be the person who disappoints another person,” he says. “It's always been my dad. I hate disappointing my dad. It's like – the worst kind of pain I know. So to make sure I don't, I am a certain way. I am tough and I refuse to do things and I do crazy overtakes, whatever. And I'm not saying it's like, my dad's fault. I know my character is kinda like this anyway. But that's where it comes from. But with you, you are disappointed when I am the way I am for my dad. That's difficult for me.”

“You have to be the person you are,” Carlos says. “Not the person others want you to be.”

“Alright, Yoda.”

“No, it's true. You can't just go around being all sorts of different people depending who's in the room.”

“OK. But what if the person I am disappoints you?”

“Doesn't matter.”

“And my dad?”

“Doesn't matter.”

“How can you be that cool about it?”

Carlos sighs. “Because I believe that we only get a short life. I mean, I don't believe that, I know that. But I believe that when I arrive at the pearly gates I will want to speak to God and say to him, yes I lived and the things we will discuss were me. And if you say I'm not good enough to live in Heaven then I understand, and it will be horrible, but I will accept that this is because of the person I was. If I was being someone else then I get there, and God says, no, you have not lived a good life, then... I will live always regretting, thinking if I had been me, I might have gone to Heaven. You know? So ultimately, I live my life as me, and what happens is because I was me. And that also means that I want to live a good life, so I can live afterwards with my family, because they are good people.”

“I've never believed in God,” Max says.

“You don't have to. Nobody has to. But this is what I believe and why everything rests with me, you know? I am my own boss. I am – the responsibility for me, is me. Even though my dad is protective and has advice and wants me to be OK, he isn't... he never was that keen on me going into motor-racing because he knows what it's like... but he knows I must be my own man. And so I try to be, always.”

“You had a good upbringing,” Max says. “Your parents did well.”

“I am very lucky,” Carlos says.

“But you also – that's really cool, to have grown that way as a person. A lot of people are lazy, I think. I'm lazy. My dad is God, you know? I don't care about the future. As long as he's happy.”

“Your dad is Old Testament God.”

“Probably,” Max says.

“I think you must remember you are still only seventeen,” Carlos says. “You are very wise and people think sometimes you are older. But we're both young. Still learning. It's OK to fuck up, but own it, I guess. I think that's important.”

“Do you ever think, this is a weird conversation for a couple of young guys to be having?”

“Not in Spain,” Carlos shrugs. “And if it is in other places, I don't care. I say the things on my mind, as long as they are kind. Or I try to.”

“I say the things in my brain, although they often cause pain,” Max says. “I don't always try not to.”

“Mmm,” Carlos says. “Up to you if you're OK with it. You have to just be OK with it. The rest doesn't matter.”

“Thanks,” Max says.

“You're welcome. I accept your apology. I don't want to do that with you again. I hope you understand this. What's OK with you may not be OK with me. That doesn't mean you need to be anyone else – it's just knowing that.”

“I understand.”

“Alright,” Carlos says. “I've heard a rumour we have to do a tea ceremony for the challenge in Japan.”

“God, I hope that's not true. The British tea was bad enough.”

“I know,” says Carlos. “I'll have to ask Jessica for advice on green tea.”

“Or Fernando,” Max says. “The samurai warrior awaits his young visitor, unlearned in the art of tea.”

“Ahh,” Carlos says. “He wasn't much help with the British tea. Great driver, shit at tea.”

“Better than the other way around.”

“Spain agrees.”

“Are we OK?” Max says. He hates the needy edge in his voice, particularly with having gone on about needing approval, needing to feel accepted, but. Rome wasn't built in a day. And some questions, you just have to ask.

“Yes,” Carlos says. “We're OK.”

**SOCHI (OCTOBER 2015)**

**Max**

Leaving Japan makes everyone feel strange and glad, as if the ghosts are still alive somehow. It's like the entire paddock takes a breath, its first breath, when they move on. Max wasn't here in 2014, but he understands why. Russia is only four days later and the feeling remains. They are all proximate to death, but at least it's no longer in the backyard.

Nonetheless. He asks Carlos, on Thursday evening, to stay in his room.

He's more than aware of what this might mean. But it's worth it. And he's excited.

***

They lie, quietly, side by side. The lights in the room are as dim as the ones outside the windows are bright. Max keeps glancing to his side, eyeing Carlos, who has his eyes closed. This isn't, precisely, what he expected. Perhaps he should take off some clothing. That might help.

He works his hands under his neck, grabs the collar of his t-shirt and yanks in as dignified a way he can. It doesn't work, obviously, and Carlos cracks open an eye to see Max with his t-shirt stuck around his skull, his hair brushing up angrily against the cotton.

“Do you need help?” Carlos says.

“If you wanna remove my clothes, that would be great,” Max says.

Carlos leans in. “Stay still, you idiot,” he says. His hands are warm as they brush Max's head, his fingers tucking hair back to where it should be. He frees Max's face of t-shirt and then leans it to kiss it a welcome back. He gets both cheeks, his nose, his forehead, before their lips meet. And Max sighs, all butter-muscles as the kiss deepens, as their arms touch with trying to grip onto each other, as their bodies move closer together. Carlos reaches behind him and knocks his t-shirt off the bed.

They settle into a rhythm that's theirs. Max likes to have his arms on top, to be able to play with Carlos' hair, to have control. Carlos likes to cup his waist, to stroke his hips, to palm his back. As Max leans in, they find a position on their sides where they can lie facing each other, noses touching, arms wrapped around their little world. And when Max gets to control the kiss, when Carlos lets him, he holds Carlos' chin high with his fingers and kisses little circles down his chin, down his neck, onto the splay of his collarbone. And Carlos' breath ricochets with pleasure.

Max isn't expecting Carlos' hand, dipping down over the small of his back, grabbing a firm hand around his arse.

He moans, hard, into Carlos' mouth.

Carlos just laughs, the complete fuck.

He lies on his back, determined not to let that mistake bite him twice. His arse is covered, his body protects it – and he's about to smirk when he realises what he's done. Because Carlos is up on his haunches, his hands planting down on either side of Max's shoulders, his supple body poised to find a comfortable place to lie.

And Max thinks, when he sees those shoulders, those very male shoulders, astride him and sees Carlos' head duck into his neck and feels the weight of him between his legs, the heft of his body sinking down and the electricity when his hips touch Max's exactly, when all of this happens all at once, Max knows that he can never go back from this moment. He can never pretend to be straight.

He doesn't want to.

Carlos lies full on him, comforting and solid, his elbows down beside Max's ears, his hands in his hair. It's the kind of kissing that Max is realising that he loves, because it's everything and it makes him feel safer than anything. Well. Until Carlos adjusts and his knee realigns and Max realises that he can feel Carlos' thigh, pressure, right where it's needed, and he's hard in a literal millisecond, harder than he's probably ever been in his entire life, and he isn't sure whether he should draw attention to it or ignore it, because nobody teaches you these things.

“Hello,” Carlos murmurs in his ear, stroking down his side with his fingers. “Hello, you.”

“Yeah hi,” Max says. “Sorry, I'll not talk back. That's weird. Shit.”

“It's OK,” Carlos says. “You don't have much blood in your brain right now.”

“No.”

“Would you like me to touch you?”

Max knows implicitly what he means. He nods. “Yes,” he says. “I really would.”

And so Carlos shifts, moves to be lying beside him, his weight still on half of Max's body and their legs intwining. And he kisses Max's neck, chin, until Max tilts him and their lips meet again, hungry and drinking, murmuring things that will never be understood by anyone or anything. Max loves the feel of Carlos' hand on his face. The way his fingers curl around, letting Max know how needed he is.

And then that hand disappears, which makes Max ready to complain – but for the fact that it traces a warm line down his chest, down the gooseflesh, down the belly where everything is prickling with heat, and down into his sweatpants. And Max thinks; I've touched myself before. I know what this is.

He doesn't.

When Carlos' fingers touch him, it's like nothing he's ever experienced in his life. It feels more intense. It feels like he can feel it in his bones. His entire back arches, his feet kicking out at the headboard, his chin taking the light from the ceiling bulbs and a warm flush spreading up his entire chest. He moans, hard, uninhibited, necessarily, because nothing has ever – may ever – feel as good as this again.

Carlos chuckles. When Max manages to open his eyes, to meet his eyes, Carlos' eyes are warm, horny, huge. He's watching him as intently as his touch feels. Max has to bite the inside of his cheek not to thrust up, to let it unfold, not to greedily wolf it down.

But God, how he wants to.

Carlos leans in, and this time the kiss jars as Max gasps, as his body trembles, because he can't predict it. He can't tell what Carlos is about to do, can't prepare for the curling smoke of his fingers nor the tight sway he's got going, the perfect wet rhythm, taking Max down into the deepest place within himself. He makes sounds, loud sounds, as they kiss, trying to explain, trying to quiet himself, unsuccessful and powerful all at once. Carlos kisses him all the harder with each one, murmuring back, his hand tightening and closing and pulsing, different pressures and different touches, until Max thinks he's out of breath, that this is it: he'll be the only person to die on his first hand-job. His shuddering is becoming problematic and Carlos leans back, his chin on Max's bicep, watching. Smiling.

“I'm sorry, I – I'm sorr- I can't,” Max stutters, his eyelashes closing and opening in fast succession, his pupils sliding back and forth from the inside of his skull to the real world. “I can't – I can't stop-”

“Don't fight it,” Carlos says, kissing his arm. “Let it happen. Just feel it. Don't try and stop it.”

“How, I – how, how do I – it feels. I'm going to. I-”

“Easy,” Carlos says. “Relax the muscles. Let me do it. Just sink back and let me do it. If you want to come, come. If you need to, come. Don't fight anything. Just relax.”

A surge of pure, white heat surges from Max's balls to his chin and he cries out, tipping his head back, his hands grabbing hold of anything he can find to keep himself centred to the earth, and his heels slam down into the bed. He can feel pressure within so strong that it feels like his skin is going to melt off. Carlos has fallen into a beautiful technique, a quick slick and slide, tight around the head, twisting around and down and over and over, and Max can't do this to himself, couldn't even begin to think of it, and when Carlos says what he says next, he has to bite down onto his mouth to stop himself from going that very second.

“You want to fuck my hand,” Carlos says. “You're fighting to stop yourself. Let it go. Fuck my hand. Show me what you like.”

And so, Max relaxes his calves and he presses forward, and that feels like the entire world sliding off a wet plate, like gravity turning itself inside out, because Carlos' hand is iron, consistent, against the fire of the thrust, it never wavers, like Max's hand does, it never stutters or stammers, it's just perfect and warm and wet and all Max can feel as he blurs his dick into it, harder and harder and harder to chase the sensation. His breath is a long, wet pant and his eyes have rolled back fully and he feels positively insane, but in the best possible way. And when he feels it coming, his jaw drops, the sweat pours from his jaw onto his throat and he's crying out, in what he hopes is English, in what he hopes is a language, full stop. His toes are cramping, his breath is being pulled out of him by demonic hands and everything,  
everything in his entire body, is his fucking dick.

He times it so that he comes into a thrust, the final stroke finishing him, his legs tensing, his upper body shaking, his hands pulling at the blankets beneath him. His mouth is open and the sound is enormous and triumphant, but what he notices is the blank white space blazing onto his eyes, the fact that his skin is burnt terracotta, the warm sea surging within and the fact that he is, completely and utterly, on fire.

“Fuck Carlos fuck fuck fuck that's – I'm – I can't – it's-”

“I'm watching,” Carlos says. “I'm watching, and it's the hottest thing I've ever seen. That's it. There it is. That's so good, so good.”

Max reaches out just before he thinks – shit I'm going to pass out – and grabs Carlos' hair. He hopes it's Carlos' hair, because he drags it to where he hopes his mouth is, and he kisses the orgasm into Carlos' lips, breathes it through him, and hopes that they both survive the sensation rocketing through everything he is.

***

The ten, twelve, fifteen minutes are excruciating. Toro Rosso has a policy – perhaps like the other teams, Max doesn't know – not to inform the driver over the radio of what has brought the session to a red flagged end. Max makes a point of not asking, although he drives past what looks like a fairly terrible crash. It's only when he gets back to the garage and the TV comes down, and Carlos doesn't pull into the garage on his side, that it starts to hit home. He asks Xevi three times, in different ways, what exactly has happened. Xevi tries to keep him cool, but the problem is that he doesn't know, either. It's not possible for anyone to know what's going on, so there's a waiting period. And every second of it is like having his hairs pulled out one by one. They don't show the footage on replay, which frightens Max, both because if he could see it then he could assess it, and because – well. When they don't show it, everyone automatically assumes the worst.

He kicks his heels against the pedals, over and over, a habit that drives his engineers crazy and one they always scold him for. But nobody tells him off, today.

Eventually, when it becomes clear that the practice session isn't restarting, they let Max get out of the car and kick some walls instead. He ambles up and down the pit lane, as if he's going to bump into someone that knows what's going on. He's aware that he's being filmed, but he can't help it. He can't remove the expression from his face. It is what it is.

It's only when there's a hubbub from the back of the garage that he rushes back inside, scared shitless – and there's that idiot on the screen, being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher, holding his thumb up. And Max lets out all of the breath in his body, not realising that he was holding it for the entire team as well as himself.

And he thinks; Christ, the one weekend your dad isn't here.

***

The problem with hospitals, as Max has long understood it, is that they do not have racing cars in them. And try as he might, the hospital bed is no substitute for a raging Toro Rosso chassis.

The text messages he's exchanging with Carlos get sadder and sadder, despite the beautiful picture he's managed to circulate through the internet, so really, Max thinks, there's only one thing for it.

 

**Carlos**

In the morning, they have breakfast together. The canteen area is quiet, it's just them and the sweet morning sunrise, the dull tinkering of the teams in the distance, like a giant machine being oiled. Max gets Carlos an orange juice. Sets it down before he comes in, wants him to notice it.

And Carlos, of course, does.

The smile could light up the entirety of the circuit, if it were a night race. If it were needed.

Max reaches out and strokes one of the fingers on his left hand as he drinks his own juice.

***

“Pst.”

Carlos has just, just drifted off. He does not want to do any more tests. He doesn't not want any more examinations. These were bad enough in school but at school you got a lunch break and a sticker for good behaviour. At the hospital, nobody gives you a lunch break and there aren't any stickers. Just more tests. He draws the blanket up a bit, making it clear that he is asleep and unless he is dying, whatever they want to do to him now can wait.

“PST.”

Nursing staff are really cold in Russia, Carlos thinks. Really rude. A man can't even have a nap for ten minutes...

“PST. CARLOS. OI. WAKE UP.”

That's rude, Carlos thinks, even for a Russian nurse.

“CARLOS FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I DON'T WANT TO TOUCH YOU, YOU'RE COVERED IN WIRES.”

That's both creepy and completely uncalled for. And possibly also incompetent.

“Go away,” Carlos hisses. “I am sleeping.”

“No you're not,” Max says. “You're talking to me.”

Carlos cracks open an eye. “Max?”

“Yes. Will you please wake up. I've told the nurse I'm your brother and she's pretty dubious so I need you to go along with it and call me Juan.”

“You said your name was Juan?”

“She asked.”

“OK,” Carlos says, turning over gingerly. He regards Max with his big soft eyes, which talk of hospital-sadness, hunger and impatience.

“So I brought you food,” Max says. “And company. Unless you want to sleep. I can go. I just thought-”

“It's nice with you here,” Carlos says. “They are always waking you up here to do tests anyway.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Max says.

“I hoped you would not see it,” Carlos says.

“That's what scared me. No footage. Nothing. I – I, God, we all know, don't we. But it's different when it's real. Sorry, you probably don't want to talk about this. But I'm just – yeah. I don't know. Are you OK?”

“Sore, but yes, in one a piece,” Carlos says. “I didn't want you to be scared.”

“We never have to. It's the first time. I mean – to be there, to feel that fear. It doesn't happen to us because it's our job. And so now I have sympathy for my family.”

“My dad is going crazy,” Carlos groans. “He's all, 'I let you out of my sight for one minute... and this is how you repay me... your skull is so thick I am so glad for this... I love you you stupid boy... your mother has lost many years of her life now...' Ai. It's difficult. Like he does not crash too! And I don't do it on purpose. And I am so hungry but nobody will feed me.”

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“Soup. It was bad.”

“OK. I have some food but it's all sugar. Probably not helpful. Oh, wait, hang on. I have some potatoes.”

“Potatoes?” Carlos perks up. “I like potatoes.”

Max reaches into his rucksack and brandishes a plastic container, placing it down on Carlos' side, out of view of the nursing stuff should they choose to walk by. He lays a fork on top.

“Wow,” Carlos says. “Where did this come from? Did you save it from dinner? It smells so good. Like gratin.”

“Yeah, I... picked it up from somewhere.”

“From a restaurant?”

“No, no. From the circuit.”

Carlos opens the lid, hungrily spooning potato into his mouth with a moan of pure satisfaction that isn't lost on Max. He keeps his cool; Carlos is an invalid, after all. But he watches him eat, happily wolfing the potato down, and it reminds him of so many things at once that he thinks that his head might explode.

“Wait,” Carlos says, pausing. “Did you take this from someone else's garage?”

“Yes,” Max says, matter of factly. “But I can't give it back now because you're eating it. So eat up.”

“It's not Fernando's?”

“No, it's not Fernando's.”

“OK,” Carlos says, continuing to eat. “That's OK then.”

Potatoes consumed, Carlos sits on the side of the bed, legs dangling down. They sit side by side, watching the dark sky and the planes shooting across. It's quiet. A little like breakfast, only that the tinkering is medicinal rather than mechanical. But Max feels the same sort of peace. Between them, their hands rest on top of one another, fingers entwined.

“You can't stay here all night,” Carlos says. “You heard the nurse.”

“Just fifteen minutes, then I'll go,” Max says.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I want to give you a present,” Max says. “One to help you feel better. So maybe you can race tomorrow.”

Carlos loves that Max doesn't question this. He's the only person who hasn't asked him to, or requested him to, eschew driving tomorrow if he's permitted to drive. Max gets it. No matter how scary this gets, he gets it.

“You already gave me a present,” he says. “The potatoes were great.”

“A different present,” Max says. He's standing up, checking over Carlos' shoulder. Carlos tries to turn, but his neck hurts, so he remains static.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nurses' break,” Max says.

“Huh?”

Max isn't standing up. He's sliding down to the floor, onto his knees. He's kneeling between Carlos' thighs. He's tucking his feet under him. He dims the light in the room, rests his chin on Carlos' knee.

“If you want,” he says.

“Yes,” Carlos says, thickly.

“I don't want you to get too excited and get kept in all weekend.”

“No, no, this will help me get better,” Carlos says.

He never expected that this would happen now, here, with him wearing a hospital gown. Not the most attractive look, but then Max doesn't seem to care. Max dips his head, ensuring that he's totally out of view from the door, and nuzzles his nose into Carlos' thigh.

“You can't make too much noise,” he says.

“I promise,” Carlos says, even though he promised his mother, once, that he wouldn't make promises he couldn't keep. He can feel himself twitching, an old familiar ache brewing, a need to just lean in and take what he wants. But Max's face is earnest and thoughtful, and he knows, he knows that the best way is to let Max figure out what he likes to suck and what he really doesn't.

It starts slow. Max stretches his jaw out, does a few initial test runs, which Carlos finds adorable. He is practising, practising to see what sort of mouth positioning is required for the job. And whilst Carlos supposes that he shouldn't find that erotic, he does. Though not as erotic as when Max makes that first tentative slide down, his tongue squeezing, his nose wrinkling with confusion.

“OK,” he says, backing up. “I just need to – this is- I expected this to be easier. One second.”

He gets it fine on the second attempt. He wriggles his jaw into place, covering up his teeth perfectly with his lips, settling into a gentle, slow drag up and down as he gets himself going. And for Carlos, watching this, it's one of the most arousing things he's ever seen. Max has such a pale mouth, expressive and wide and trying, hard, to keep everything all together, and it makes Carlos feel huge – but it also makes him feel like he'll remember this, always, a moment where Max had to learn to redefine the shape of his mouth.

It helps, of course, that Max tends to moan throughout.

He lets his head tip back, slightly, keen not to miss anything. Max's eyes flick upwards, lock on. He realises, and Carlos sees it in his eyes, that he's found a rhythm that works, that feels good, and he's going to exploit it.

“Don't try to go too fast,” Carlos gulps. “Just – like that, that's so good. That's so good.”

“Mm,” Max says, or tries to. “Mmmmnf.”

When Carlos feels his jaw starting to tire – he can feel it, on the base, because there are muscles which should tremble and muscles which shouldn't – he leans down and strokes Max's hair, then takes the base of his cock in his hand. Strokes upwards to meet Max's mouth and then makes a rumble sound in the throat as Max moves back, suckling the head.

“Oh, God, yeah,” Carlos says. “Yeah, suck on that, please. Please keep doing that. That feels amazing.”

Max's eyes turn light with relief, as he moves back on his heels, tightens his grip and lets his tongue flatten the frenulum, cradling it as Carlos' gasps turn grunt-ish. He lets Carlos slick his fingers up and down, he meets them with the tips of his lips, but able to focus he doubles up and doubles down on the head, all tight hot wet power, and Carlos isn't sure that breathing is really a thing he's capable of for the time being.

He rests his hands on Max's head, not tugging his hair, just touching, just feeling – just having that point between them that lets Max know how incredible this feels. And when he's right there, he lets Max know – gently, softly, whispered into the dark of the room, so that Max can move back, or pull out, or whatever it is that he feels comfortable doing.

What he doesn't expect is for Max to clamp down harder, to take him so tight in his lips that the orgasm is a heartbeat, his ears ringing, his heart singing. And Max swallows, greedy and timed to perfection, taking whatever Carlos can give, and Carlos finds that when he looks down at him, the corners of his eyes are wet with the pain of that much pleasure.

“Holy shit,” he says, eventually.

Max wipes the back of his mouth, shrugs with a smile. “Don't know why everyone calls that a job, really. Easy.”

Carlos laughs, dizzily. Grabs Max's shirt around the collar and pulls him in. Max purses his lips for a kiss, a question in his eyes, like – you're going to taste yourself? – but it's lost as Carlos pulls him close for a hug. Arms around the neck, their hearts together, their bodies warm and soft and tired.

“That was so amazing,” Carlos says. “Thank you.”

“Don't do that to me again,” Max says. “Today.”

“I can't, Max,” Carlos says. “But I can promise to come back, if it happens, because it's you. Does that make sense?”

“No,” Max says. “But it's OK. I'm still learning to speak you.”

Carlos laughs.

“They were Rosberg's potatoes,” Max says, as he draws back.

“It was Pierre Gasly,” Carlos says.

“What?”

“The orange juice.”

“Oh. OK. Wait – so. You trust me, now, to tell me that?”

“I do.”

“Cool. That's cool. I mean, I'm going to run him over now, but cool.”

“Max.”

“I'm not really.”

“Shit, Rosberg's potatoes? He'll go crazy.”

“What's he going to do, talk you to death in lots of languages? Sing really badly at you until your head explodes? It's fine, he's not exactly Marlon Brando.”

“Max,” Carlos says, laughing. “You are such a little shit.”

“So everyone keeps telling me,” Max says, but he joins in all the same.

**AUSTIN (OCTOBER 2015)**

**Max**

There have been plenty of places where, over time, Max has imagined having sex for the first time. Not all of them were romantic. But most of them were rooted in something tender, that's just the way he's always been. And you do tend to idealise things.

He certainly never expected it to happen over a rainy race weekend, when he was supposed to be driving, but wasn't. When the weather was supposed to be decent, but wasn't. When it maybe should have been a girl, but wasn't. It takes all sorts to make a world.

Austin isn't his first wet weekend, but it's the most disrupted one he's ever had. He stands in the bucketing rain on Saturday afternoon, as what little light there is fades, watching the other drivers working hard to entertain the drenched crowds. He and his mechanics set up a little game of skittles, to do their part, as Daniel and Daniil do some kind of waltz or something. All in all, it's not racing, but it's good fun. The problem is that it comes after a Friday of non-running, and Max really just wants to be back between the wheel. He wants to feel the car biting back against him, to feel the tension running up his calves and through his back to the very tips of his fingers. He wants to be slightly deaf with the sound of engine noise, to feel his heart-rate soar as he juggles driving and listening, deciding on strategy. He wants to feel alive.

He has too much energy for skittles.

Once the day is called to an end and the fans are treated to their reward for being good sports, their COTA meet and greet, Max wishes he could go out and run the track. Burn some energy off. Maybe some of the fans would enjoy that as a race of sorts.

He trudges back to his room, the lightning flashing up and down the halls via the small windows at each end. The thunders murmurs disapprovingly, like a god denied his racing car. Max sympathises. He's about to shut the door to his room, to let it slam behind him, when the sound of it swinging stutters out and he turns, to find a drenched Carlos standing in its way.

“Evening,” Carlos says.

“Lemme guess,” Max says. “You need to use my shower, because yours is broken.”

“How did you know?” Carlos says, mockingly, mouth in a wide O-shape. “You read minds too?”

“Get in there, then.”

It helps. The pair of them stand in the warm steam, the pounding hot rain, letting all of the cold sticky rainy day drain down the plug and away. And whenever Max opens his eyes, Carlos opens his too, and they get to look at one another through the fog and the warmth and when they kiss, it soothes Max all the way down his spine.

It's even better when they're washing their hair, fighting over the stream of water, laughing and twisting around each other, wet and stupid and everything. They settle for sharing, eyes closed, as the water plasters their skulls and runs rivets of soap past their squeezed-shut eyes, their laughing mouths. It tastes vile. They are so close together that Max can feel Carlos' toes under his feet. He opens his eyes and runs his hands over his head, sending the spray down his back, and looks at Carlos, whose hair is coal and curling, whose eyes are flame and burning, and he knows precisely, in that second, where this is going to go.

And it seems it's mutual, because Carlos reaches for him in the same moment. And they kiss-walk, shoving clothes hangers and coats and bags and shoes out of their way as they march towards the bed, as they topple down onto top of the duvet still wet, as they kiss each other wet through.

“Max,” Carlos breathes. “Do you have-”

“No,” Max says. “Fuck. No. Do you-”

“Yes. I'll be back. Stay there.”

Carlos hops off, looks around the room for something to wear. He picks up a towelling robe that's been discarded, throws it around himself and jogs out of the room. Max lies back on the bed, silently screaming. He wants to go and find his 'phone, to double check all those things he looked up, to be ready for this moment. His stomach is water. He goes into the bathroom, pees, drinks a pint of water. When he comes out, Carlos is back, and suddenly, Max wonders whether it matters that he doesn't know anything.

He hopes not.

He lies down on the bed. Carlos lies down on against him, still robed, so that it's comforting feeling that towelling brush against his skin. Max reaches in and unties the cord, letting the fabric fall open, letting their warm skin touch. Letting their lips touch.

When Carlos kisses his neck, he reaches up, winds his fingers in his hair, tilts his head to the side. The curtains aren't drawn but the privacy curtains are, and beyond them he can see the outlines of an angry city, wet and teeming, occasionally screaming with white-hot bolts of range. All around them is the patter, the insistent drumming, of rain. And of his own heartbeat.

Carlos kisses down his belly, and Max watches him do it, his eyes lidded with pleasure, his toes flexing. He loves being naked with him. It's a big deal, as generally being naked isn't a comfortable thing, but with Carlos it just works. He loves to be kissed. He loves it when Carlos holds his hips down so that he can kiss his belly properly, because Max moves with ticklishness and it's so much nicer when he's held still, so that he can wriggle through it. And so he does, swatting at Carlos' head, eyes closed with pleasure.

“OK,” Carlos says. “Which way do you want to do this?”

“The normal way,” Max says, opening his eyes. “The way I looked up on Google.”

“Right,” Carlos says. “The – right. You want me to prepare myself, for you? Or the other way around?”

“Ah,” Max says. “I have not got a fucking clue, about how to – how to do that. Can you, I don't know. Can you give me an example? Then, next time...”

“You want me to prepare you for me?”

“Yes.”

“Sure,” Carlos says. “I wanna eat your belly up. It's so fucking cute.”

“If you had a restaurant, it'd be full of orange juice, steak and Max belly,” Max says. “Like pork belly, you know.”

“Mmm,” Carlos says, burying Max's belly in kisses. His hand reaches up, starts gently stroking him off. Max feels the engine starting to whirr, just a little hum within, a pleasant murmur. He stretches into it, enjoying it.

“I'm gonna keep doing that,” Carlos says. “This may feel weird. Tell me if it's too weird, OK. Not everyone likes it.”

“Really selling it, Sainz.”

“Shut up, Verstappen.”

To be fair to Carlos, it does feel weird. Not cold, because Carlos has warmed the lube up on his hands, but like something is happening that shouldn't be. Like something emergent is happening. It isn't normal, he supposes, to feel like this is happening. And he'd rather be prepared, obviously. But it feels really wet. Like, really wet.

“OK?” Carlos says, continuing to stroke him, which Max is trying hard to focus on.

“It's a weird sensation,” Max says.

“Yeah, it feels weird,” Carlos says. “Like there's too much lube.There's not, trust me.”

“I want to laugh.”

“You can laugh,” Carlos says. “It's a pretty weird thing to do and make sexy. I know what you mean. Just go for it. I'm not offended.”

“What does it feel like, for you?”

“Tight, hot,” Carlos says. “It's nice. I like it. It – this will sound weird, but it's much easier for me to feel what the muscles are like with my fingers. With your dick, it's harder to get a sense of it.”

“It's not a racing circuit,” Max says. He's laughing already. “Ah, this is Rascasse, here...”

Carlos joins in. “No, I know. But it is – there are places that are different. See, I'll show you.”

He gently swirls one fingers around, pressing down onto a spot that makes Max's knees lock up.

“See, there, there is more resisting. It doesn't like too much pressure, I think.”

“It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't like it.”

“Yeah. So it's better for me to know that with my fingers. I can't feel it so well with my dick.”

“This is a slightly weird conversation. It's like talking at the dentist.”

“You're nearly done,” Carlos says.

“That isn't helping.”

“Sorry.”

“So this – the muscles are what makes it feel good?”

“That and your prostate.”

“Where is it? Have you found it?”

“Not yet. It's a slippery fuck. It's hiding from me.”

“OK. I'll guide you,” Max says, arching his back, flattening his hips down.

“OK,” Carlos says. “Use me. Flex down on my fingers. Not too hard, I don't need them broken. Tell me when you hit  
it.”

“Will I know?”

“Yes. You'll know.”

Everything about this feels peculiar. Everything. But then Max supposes that it isn't supposed to feel normal. It's an odd thing to be doing. Undignified, involving too many things which are really between you and a locked bathroom door. But Max isn't a quitter. If guys do this, then they do this for a reason. So he rotates his hips, slowly, circling until he finds spots which feel like they might be it.

“Is that it?” he says, when he finds one spot that makes him feel all warm inside. Carlos flexes his fingers and then shakes his head. Max wonders how it is that Carlos knows better than he does.

“OK,” he says, and continues. “What about there? That feels quite nice.”

“As a tip-off, it's probably going to feel nicer than quite nice,” Carlos says, stroking his fingers. “Nope. Not it.”

“Fuck,” Max says. “Maybe I don't have one.”

“You have one.”

“What if I don't?”

“You can pee. Trust me, it's here somewhere.”

“Maybe you drowned it.”

Carlos cracks up, burying his face into Max's hip. “I did not drown it,” he says. “That's not even possible.”

“It might be. I feel like you've flooded everything. It's probably scared.”

Carlos laughs even harder. Max props himself up on his elbows to look at him, which tilts his hips right down, and then, suddenly, he thinks, I've been electrocuted. The lightning has come indoors. His entire body twitches and he tries to say a sentence which comes out as a muffled stream of nonsense.

“That's it,” Carlos says, grinning.

“Fuuuuuuucccccck,” Max says. “Oh, fuck. Can we do more of that? I like that. That was great.”

“Of course,” Carlos says. He climbs up onto his arms, for more kissing, for more warmth, and Max finds himself parting his legs, trying to work out a position that doesn't make him feel like his hips are going to snap in half. He settles for a leg around Carlos' butt, another resting on the back of his calves. He can hear Carlos opening a condom wrapper, sliding one on. It all becomes, in a moment, incredibly real. Carlos has withdrawn his fingers and already he  
feels the loss of it, but when Carlos rests his dick against him he feels a sudden pulse of nerves.

“That is really big,” he says. “It. Is that going to work? Is this a thing? Do people really do this? Is it just a big thing that people say they do, but nobody actually does?”

Carlos pauses. Lilting on one arm, he says, “I've done it. It can be done. We'll take it slow, if you still want to, OK? But yes, it is done. I promise it is a thing.”

“OK,” Max says. “I want to try. Let's try.”

They try.

There's a moment, just one moment, where Max thinks: this is totally going to be fine. There's a moment where he thinks, this doesn't even hurt, what are people going on about with the pain thing? And then he realises that all he's feeling is the pressure of the approach. All he's feeling is Carlos there, just touching. The moment Carlos moves forward, and he has to let him in, it sears white hot right through him and he can't hold back the whine. Carlos strokes his hair back, stops immediately.

“Jesus,” he says. “Jesus fuck.”

“Not moving until you say,” Carlos says.

“How – are you in? Is that it?”

“Er. No. Not fully.”

“Right. OK. Gimme a moment.”

“It's cool. Don't worry. Just see if it's working for you. If not, no big deal.”

It strikes Max only later what it must've been like, holding himself up on his arms, feeling the pressure, the wonderful tense pleasure around his dick, not being able to move when he must have been crazy to, but at the time none of that occurs to him. He rests his head back against Carlos' palms, breathing into it. And when he nods, Carlos resettles himself, and supports Max by the back of the thigh as he moves forward. Max's lower back tenses. It hurts. It really hurts. But he tells himself, it's the head. It's the biggest part. It'll get easier, when it slips and slides and it hits a straight, when it's just a smooth run down. It's just that the more Carlos moves, the more he feels like he's losing control of his body, like he'll never be able to piece this back together, and it hurts more than anything he's ever felt in his life.

“Alright, alright, I – fuck,” he says. “Carlos, I – no. No. I've had shits that I thought were going to kill me. This is worse. Sorry. That's horrible. But I- can we?”

Carlos is already, gently, retracting. “Ssh,” he says. “It's OK. Don't worry. It's not for everyone.”

“I just compared you to shit.”

“No, you – well. It was a metaphor. I didn't take it personally. Are you OK?”

“Guys don't really do that.”

“They do. Not all guys do. Some guys hate it. It's OK. We don't have to do that.”

“Fuck,” Max says. “I've lost it, sorry. The- my dick-”

Carlos leans in, kisses him. “Ssh,” he says, again. “OK. OK, tell you what. We can do kissing, if you like. Or just lie here. Whatever you-”

“Can you do the prostate thing? That was fucking great.”

“With my fingers?”

“Yes.”

“God,” Carlos breathes. “Of course I fucking can.”

***

Any embarrassment Max felt at chickening out – whatever Carlos says – of the whole dick in arse thing, is soon gone, because he loves the feeling of Carlos' fingers. He loves it more than anything else they've ever done, and possibly as much as driving an F1 car. It's that good. It's so good that he feels like he might genuinely be losing his mind. He uses Carlos' fingers as a ballast, digging his hips down and up so that he can feel the press of his finger-pads all over, so that he gets it timed with his breath, thrumming through him like warm water.

“I love watching you,” Carlos says. He's lying beside, touching himself, watching, his eyes full of heat. “I love it. Look at you taking it. I love to see that. I love to watch you wanting more, you pushing me hard for it. Taking it. Fuck, it's so hot.”

“It feels so fucking – Carlos, it feels so fucking good, please, just, God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but don't touch my dick. Don't. I just wanna feel this.”

“I haven't got a free hand anyway,” Carlos growls.

“I can feel that,” Max says. “It's hot. I can feel your hand. You're gonna finish way ahead if you don't slow down.”

“Fuck off,” Carlos says, but he does begin to pace it.

“Can I – how hard – can I flex? I don't want to break your fingers but I want it hard, I want it harder.”

“OK,” Carlos says, adjusting his body. “I'll let you have it. Don't move until I show you how hard I can do it.”

“Promises,” Max bites out. And regrets it.

The moment Carlos presses inward, the minute he takes over and finds the spot that Max wants, over and over, hard and firm, is when Max realises that his scattergun approach to wriggling his hips is nothing compared to this icy precision. He moans hard, holding onto Carlos' forearm, then slides his hips gently down, taking over the rhythm, feeling the ebb and swell and that he's dripping all over himself with shaking need.

He swears, aloud, tries to speak, tries to find words to say, “speed up, speed up, I'm nearly – that's -”

“I know,” Carlos murmurs, and he has, Max realises, he can feel the blur of his wrist, and as Carlos presses down one last time, he feels his brain dissolve into mush, his body collapse into itself, his mind go totally and blissfully blank. One second later, or two, Carlos collapses against him, his breath heaving, his body shuddering, and Max wraps his arms around his torso as they struggle to reorientate themselves together, the thunder rumbling hard outside.

***

He wakes up in the night to the sound of the rain gently falling. Carlos' breathing makes it a percussion. Max opens his eyes to the moonlight falling across the bed, across Carlos' face-down ridiculous slumbering form. It's the first time he's seen moonlight so far this weekend. It's always been too cloudy, too stormy. The lightning has moved on. It's a quiet, soaked world outside.

Carlos is snoring.

Max regards him. He's curled up on his side, the sheets twisted around him like one of those fancy twists that sometimes get served as canapés at his dad's parties. But probably, he's more delicious. He watches him breathe, his eyelashes very gently moving as he dreams, his hair falling over his face. He has one arm thrown over Max's belly and the other is tucked somewhere in the middle of the sheet-fort he's made himself. The sheet is over one of Max's feet and otherwise he's stark naked. He isn't cold. He settles back, listens to the rain outside and to the utter quiet within.

There are moments that he never thought would come to him. Formula 1 isn't one of them, as if he's being really honest he always felt it was his destiny. But this is something else. He always assumed it'd wear off, the thing he thought was just – a weird teenage quirk, a fixation worsened by constancy, by anxiety, by never having met the girl that was absolutely right for him. The thing is, he knows all too well that Carlos isn't absolutely right for him – because nobody is, that's not how the world works – but the ways in which he is and great and the ways in which he isn't are teaching him something – and maybe that's the way the world does work.

He never thought that he would be in a place, in the dark, with a boy sleeping across him and parts of him that he doesn't want to name aching, and other parts stirring at the thought of what he's done with this boy. Of what he will do, yet, if he is allowed the time.

 

**Carlos**

In Carlos' dreams, he's a world champion. He races at circuits all over the world and people talk about him the way they talked about Fernando, the way his dad talks about him to his friends. He loves his life. He loves the car, and the team, and it all works well together. He doesn't win easily, there are always fights, but he takes them on and he punches above his weight and he's renowned for being the great driver that he knows he is.

In Carlos' dreams, he's settled in a home that he loves. OK, so sometimes it all gets a bit crazy and a giraffe will walk through the living room, but that's dreaming when you're Carlos. He's used to it. Although he does dream that he has a pet meerkat or three. Just in the garden, keeping a watch out for burglars and so on.

In Carlos' dreams, his family are happy and settled, and he has so many nieces and nephews that it's hard to keep track of them all. But he takes them to races, too, just as he would've loved to have gone as a kid, and they love it as much as he does. They don't all support him, but he's OK with that, because they're family.

In Carlos' dreams, he comes home to a girl, or to a boy, and whichever it is he's happy, because it's the person that he loves. And they love him. He has a home with his partner, and it's a relationship based on mutual trust and respect, values that may differ but aren't corrosive. It's supportive, loving, sometimes tempestuous but the making up is just as good. He makes love as often as he can, gets kisses each and every morning. Loves hard, loves fast, loves deep. Everything as it should be.

More and more often, lately, Carlos' dreams have begun to form a person where once it was only love. And the shape grows stronger, brighter, clearer with every dream he has.

Sometimes he wakes up, and he has to shake his head so as to remember which is the dream, and which is the life. And maybe, just maybe, there soon won't be a difference at all.


	2. 2016, to Sochi

**YAS MARINA (NOVEMBER 2015)**

**Max**

Carlos' shoulder bumps his as they're bundled out of the media pen with the rest of the class of 2015. Max looks up, sees his father approaching, adjusts his cap. Carlos follows his gaze and stiffens. He grabs Max by the wrist, and whispers, “come to London after Christmas. Spend New Year with me.”

Max is about to ask when Carlos answers,“in bed.”

“What about your family?”

“They won't be in the bed. You are a sick boy.”

“Carlos, my dad is literally ten feet-”

“They will stay for Christmas, but my mother can't take the cold for too long, so they will go before New Year. Ai ai, Max, he looks-”

“Yes. Of course I want to. Yes.”

In reality, Max would cheerfully have walked there from his dad's house, his dad probably clinging to his ankles half the way. He just hasn't met Carlos' parents yet. It's a hurdle he's not remotely ready for. 

“OK,” he says. “I need to handle this, but-”

“Good luck,” Carlos says. “He doesn't look happy.”

He doesn't. 

Carlos greets Jos as he approaches, and Jos looks at him in surprise, as if he thought Carlos would just melt away upon his approach. That is, to be fair, what people tend to do, Max thinks. 

“Hello,” Jos says. “Nice to see you. Max, Franz wants to have a word.”

“Oh, OK,” Max says. “OK. Text me.”

Carlos smiles politely, but the heat in his eyes would melt stone. 

There's a meeting with his dad, with Franz. Max doesn't even hear half of it. 

 

**Carlos**

Carlos really fucking hates Jos Verstappen.

**CHELSEA (DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016)**

**Max**

It's his first winter as a semi-adult, and so he spends it as he thinks all adults should: in a permanent state of semi-hardness. 

Carlos' flat in London is beautiful. It's absolutely tiny, but Carlos says it's worth it for the sleepy leafy trees outside, the soundless breeze, the way the snow falls on the sills so softly you forget it's that it's frozen ice. The interior is – well, the polite way to describe it is worldly (the impolite way? Totally mad). Carlos has art. The only adult that Max knows who owns art. Proper art, not the vaguely pornographic stuff his dad keeps on his coffee table. The kind of really cool art that looks shit but isn't, once you've had a proper thoughtful look at it. Not the typical posh stuff, but huge canvasses streaked with colour and garish memory. There's a whole section of wall in the living room that's just covered, floor to ceiling, in newspaper clippings of his dad's career, and pictures of Carlos as a young kid surrounded by cars. A few of his own articles once he'd achieved some teenage notoriety. Max likes to stand and look at the clippings, and at the framed pictures on the side table beside it; Majorca, Carlos at 4 or 5, bucket and spade. His mum and dad, when they were young, dancing. That's the kind of guy Carlos is, Max thinks. He wants to be reminded that his parents were young, romantic, dreaming. It feeds his hope for the future. 

The décor isn't chic. Carlos clearly isn't into hygge or minimalism; he uses colour richly. His kitchen is orange, by choice. He uses warm woods instead of chrome, thick patterned curtains instead of neat blinds, and keeps a menagerie of plants. He has hanging baskets attached to the ceiling, which he waters every day. He has a magazine rack, which Max is pretty sure hasn't been a thing since long before either of them were born. He has a huge bookshelf, crammed full of books on all sorts of topics. Max likes the photography books and the ones which have drawings of antique car design, which he flips through in the square navy leather cuddle chair in the corner of the living room. There's one book that appears to be a guide to different types of tree, another on the history of Japanese film-making. And finally, Carlos' treasured record player. It's old, it's unreliable, and it hiccups most of the music, but Carlos won't upgrade. He won't hear a word said against the thing, and Max has come to think of it as the soundtrack to home. 

Max loves it.

He even loves that the walls of the bedroom are navy, that the bed has a ridiculous quilted red tartan throw on it, and that there's a string of soft cream lights above the headboard. Victoria would love that. And yet, when he saw it, he couldn't bring himself to laugh, because Carlos would only look at him with those eyes and ask why, and Max would have to be the person who said: because it's _girly_ , like it was a bad thing, and he just doesn't want to be that person anymore. There's strength in being exactly who you are, and saying fuck the rest. Max is learning that there's more than one way to be like that. More than just his way.

And sometimes, when they lie together in bed, naked as fuck, and the night is dark outside, Max can see the glow of the lights on their skin and on Carlos' thick dark hair. And it's as if they're made of stardust. 

Who'd object to being made of stars?

***

Often, they go for walks in the snow. It's not heavy, but it crunches pleasingly, and people in Chelsea are apparently real wimps because it's usually just the two of them out there at night. Sometimes, they go over to Lexham Gardens, which is really a London square. That's English for really tiny garden, and Max loves it there. The snow huddles huffily on the branches of the trees, which Carlos informs him are lime trees. Not at the moment, of course, it's too cold – but still. Limes, in London. When Max asks him how he knows that, he just shrugs, affably. How he knows isn't as important as what he knows. It's one of the things that Max likes so much about him.

Of course, they have snowball fights. It's not all adult consumption of modern art and arboricultural discussions over backgammon and port-drinking. Although Max likes the lie about the backgammon, he thinks it puts his dad off the scent. Two boys gagging for one another wouldn't be playing backgammon. That's for old people like Sebastian.

Anyway, snowball fights. 

It turns out that falling onto your back in the snow isn't really as romantic as it looks. Snow is _hard_. But when he's breathing red from exertion, and the night chill falls down on him, and Carlos' lips are there, warm and inviting – well. It doesn't need to look romantic to be romantic. They share scarves. They share water, in baths and in showers. Their wellingtons sit by the door and leak slush all over the hardwood floors, as their former occupants laugh and writhe about in Scottish clan bedding. 

All in all, it's the perfect winter break. They even manage to do some training. 

The London Bus Tour, though, is a particular highlight.

***

Max is very skeptical about the Bus Tour. He hates looking like a tourist, for one thing. He doesn't like the banter that the guides always have to use. And there'll probably be loads of German people there talking over it, anyway. But most importantly, Carlos is naked when he suggests it, and he can't be naked on a bus tour, both because it's -3 degrees celsius and because Max would have to fight all the other boys off.

He puts this argument to Carlos, who points out that he's been naked for all of 3 days, and so Max should probably be used to it. 

Max is not used to it.

But it's something that Carlos wants to do, and Max supposes that it'd be nice to have something to say about London when his dad asks (I spent a week with my hand around his dick, and you want to know about Madame Tussards?)

“We're not going to Madame Tussards, though, right?” He asks around his toothbrush. 

“No,” Carlos says, turning the shower on. “I know how you feel about waxworks.”

***

The top deck was a masterstroke. Nobody in their right mind wants to sit outdoors on December 30th, let alone on the top deck of a bus. So they have it to themselves, and Carlos foregoes the guided audio so that he and Max can make up their own version of the tour.

London is very, very attractive in the snow. Hyde Park Corner is dusted in it, the effect almost Berlin-esque, and the look of Marble Arch in the frost is enough to make Max draw Carlos' scarf around him a bit tighter. It's Speakers' Corner, though, that sets him off laughing.

“So anyone can just turn up, and stand there, and talk crap?”

“Yep,” Carlos grins. “It's like a press conference, but people are actually awake.”

“Fuck,” Max says. “Imagine if they let Seb have a go.”

“He'd miss the first race.”

“He'd miss the whole season.”

The view into Hyde Park is beautiful, even in the dim light and even without the tree leaves. There aren't any deer but the rolling white fields and the scarecrow tree branches strike Max as somehow romantic. He reaches down, cups Carlos' thigh with his hand. Not too high, not enough to make him think he's not taking it seriously, but Carlos smiles at him, and understands. The bus sails on. 

“Piccadilly Circus,” Carlos says. “On the right.”

“It's not an actual circus,” Max complains. “It's false advertising.”

“But look at the statue,” Carlos says. 

Bow and arrow, Max notes. “Is it cupid?” 

“No, Anteros. Cupid is a Roman God, Eros is the Greek version. Everyone thinks it is Eros – Cupid – but it's not, it's his brother. Eros is a naughty bastard, he interferes with humans by making them fall in love with each other. Anteros is selfless love. The name means, like, a mirror of feeling, so when two people are in love, they have the same feelings for each other. I like that they chose it instead of Eros. It makes me happy when I see it.”

“Carlos,” Max says. “How the fuck do you know this?”

“I read guidebooks,” Carlos says. “I love statues. I ask questions. I took a few walking tours. I don't know, I remember things. It's a beautiful sculpture.”

“It is beautiful,” Max says. “But I think I prefer you naked.”

Max feels on safer ground with the London Eye, with St Paul's Cathedral, where he breaks into an impromptu version of “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins until Carlos spills his Pepsi Max laughing. The Tower of London disappoints him much in the same way Piccadilly Circus does (it isn't a tower), but Buckingham Palace- well. That can't fail to impress. At least it's an actual palace, for one thing.

“Look at their little uniforms,” Max giggles, pointing at the London Guards. “They look like Lego people. Like dolls. I bet you could lean down on the bus and tap them with the selfie stick and they wouldn't even move. I bet even Seb couldn't make them move. I bet even Daniel _farting_ -”

“Ahhh, don't, I'm enjoying myself too much to think about such terrible things,” Carlos says. “I want one of their hats.”

“You would look really sexy in it.”

“I know,” Carlos says. “But I'd need the outfit to match.”

“You would. Unless you wore it and nothing else. That could be almost too hot, though. I'd need a lie down.”

“Oh, no, what would I do with you lying down.”

“Exactly. So we're going to find a fancy dress shop, right?”

“I'll just lean down and take one of the hats. No problemo. Can you hold onto my foot?”

“This will be even more effective than Daniel farting,” Max says.

Carlos turns to playfully hit him, and so the stony faces of London's Beefeaters are preserved for another day.

***

They ride the bus back around to Hyde Park Corner, and then Carlos says he has a surprise for Max and they need to get off. The street is bustling and they're swept along, Max craning his head to make sure the infamous logo of Madame Tussards isn't looming. When they stop outside Harrods, he's so expecting to see some horrible waxy version of Usain Bolt that he doesn't even notice the gleaming, chocolate-box, every-Christmas-movie- _ever_ toy store. Carlos' eyes dart upwards, and his follow.

“Harrods? You want some new toys, Carlos? The car is not enough for you?”

“Come on,” Carlos says. “Surprise is in here.”

“OK,” Max says. “But I'm not sitting on Santa's lap.”

They have to lug the four-foot Beefeater bear back to Carlos' flat on the tube. A bored cleaner watches them throw the bear to one another over the security turnstiles, managing to resist an eyeroll when Carlos jokes that Bertie Bear should have to buy his own ticket. They're lucky enough to find a fairly deserted tube on the Piccadilly Line back to South Kensington (Carlos jokes that all the Chelsea-folk have their own tractors, which goes over Max's head), and Carlos takes the opportunity to use the selfie stick. He, Max and Bertie make a nice threesome, he says, with a smile. The picture is cute, but Carlos is sticking his tongue out and it's difficult to focus on anything else. He asks Carlos to send it to him anyway. They walk from South Kensington back to Sloane Square, and by the time they get there it's almost 9pm and pretty much empty. Carlos stops to look at the fountain. There's a sculpture of a woman pouring water from a conch shell. His eyes rake over it, and he smiles.

“OK,” Max says. “Tell me about this one, professor.”

“I don't know about this one,” Carlos says. “I haven't taken the right walking tour. It's pretty, no?”

“Could do with a wash.”

“You have no romance.”

“I have plenty of romance.”

“Hmmm,” Carlos says. “Please find out what the statue is for me. That would be very romantic.”

“I'll Google it later.”

“Fine.”

“Now that's pretty,” Max says, of the Christmas lights surrounding the war memorial in the square. The towering trees are festooned with white LED lights, which burn smoky blue against the night sky. Framed by Georgian architecture and the festive storefronts, the overall effect is enchanting, if – as Carlos points out – entirely commercial and not a patch on the statue. 

They stand there, a solitary pair (trio, counting Bertie), as the snow half-heartedly falls. It's cold enough that anyone who were passing by would assume they're huddling for warmth, rather than ascribing anything to it. So Max feels brave enough to cuddle closer, so that his breath mingles with Carlos' in little clouds before their faces. They stand there for no more than fifteen minutes, in the quiet of it, just being together and relishing in being together, in central London, unknown and unbothered. 

Then, Carlos nudges Max with his shoulder, and they move on.

***

Regardless of how not-adult Max has felt throughout the rest of his trip (having spent a lot of it naked and another lot of it trying to get that way), New Year's Eve is very adult. They grab blankets and take to the balcony's double-seater lounger. It's cold, and slightly damp, but it doesn't matter. They'll soon warm up, huddled together beneath the layers of fabric. The sky is unfathomably enormous, and so clear that the stars are pinpricks. Explains the cold, Max thinks. The snow has stopped falling. In a few hours, the fireworks will draw everyone on the banks of the Thames closer together. But here, now, it's quiet, and still. Carlos' hands are warm beneath their makeshift covers, and his eyelashes as unfathomably long as the sky is huge.

He feels Max staring at him, and turns his head with a smile. “Don't let me freeze to death,” he says.

Max smiles back, and leans in for a kiss. It's intended to be soft, reassuring, protective – but, well. It misses the mark. Not that it's a problem, when Carlos turns over in their makeshift bed, shuffles closer, and pulls Max into him. Definitely not a problem, his running both hands over Max's arse, and squeezing. And oh, God, that moan that escapes his mouth- not a problem _at all_. It's when Carlos' tongue goes from 'oh, I care about us not dying of hypothermia' to 'actually, I don't give two shits if we're preserved in ice right here', that Max has to surface for air. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Outside? Really?”

“Pull the blankets up and over,” Carlos says. “It's cold enough. Nobody else is outside in this weather. Be quiet, for once, and it'll be fine.”

“Fuck,” Max says. “You're a kinky bitch.”

“And you're getting thrown off the balcony if you continue to talk that way,” Carlos says, nipping his throat as Max heaves the bundle of blankets over their heads. 

“Gotcha,” Max says. He strokes his hands over Carlos' face, down, and tugs the jumper and t-shirt out of his sweatpants. The skin beneath is flushed hot with arousal, and he wants to get down there and cover it with kisses- but they need to minimise contact with the freezing air. So instead, he encourages Carlos beneath him, tugging his own clothing free of his trousers. The blankets tent over them as they move, soundlessly, gracelessly, uncaringly, until both of them have a hand where a hand is needed, and otherwise a jumper to keep things warm. Max has to straddle Carlos' hips and it's awkward as balls, but once Carlos is stroking him off then he stops caring. He props himself up with a hand behind Carlos' head, and uses the other to tease gestures out of him he didn't know was possible. He's learning, Max. He knows that Carlos likes extra attention on the head (duh), but that he also prefers warm and loose to precise and firm. He knows that Carlos likes to fuck a little into a hand, whereas he prefers to be still and let Carlos work intricate magic on him. He doesn't think about the fact that this may be because Carlos misses having _proper_ sex, because that's painful (well, literally). He just thinks, well, that's what he likes, so I'll do it better than anyone else on the planet. Certainly better than Pierre fucking Gasly.

And that night, he proves it. Carlos is a _mess_ barely two minutes in, his warning Max of the importance of quietness utterly pointless. Every time he does that breathy moan, Max wants to cough loudly to cover it up, even though his coughs are even noisier and more inexplicable, and even though the moan is in fact one of the greatest sounds that he's ever heard in his short life. Carlos has started fucking at his hand with joyful abandon, and Max leans down to graze his neck with teeth as his fingers distractedly flit on the head of Max's dick.

“Concentrate,” he murmurs.

“Ahhhh,” Carlos says. “I'm trying.”

“No, you're not.”

“I am, oh- fuck, God-”

“You're useless.”

“I'm going to-”

“I KNOW.”

They fall asleep long before the fireworks begin, and awake to their unholy racket. Carlos proclaims his nipples stone dead from cold, and it takes them until 2am in front of the wood-burning stove to recover full use of their fingers. Max finds some pizza in the freezer, cracks open a couple of beers, and brings them to their floor picnic table.

“Well, fuck,” he says. “Happy New Year.”

***

Max doesn't know, exactly, how Carlos remembered the story, of the bear, of being four and with his dad in Harrods. He doesn't even remember telling Carlos the story. But he must've, because now he wakes up in the morning and sees the giant, plush toy with its regal uniform, sitting in the corner of the bedroom, and he feels both utterly protected and utterly strange.

Carlos is in the shower, humming to himself. Max keeps his eyes on Bertie, pulls the tartan cover up high. 

When Carlos emerges, neatly origami'd in a towel, Max is overcome by the need to compete with the bear gesture. He raises his chin high, lifts the covers up. 

“Carlos,” he says. Carlos is eyeing his hair in the mirror, and his eyes meet Max's. “I want you to fuck me.”

Carlos raises an eyebrow. They haven't tried this since the first disastrous attempt. It makes Max all the more determined. Carlos nods.

This time, Max doesn't let him try to take charge. He doesn't want to feel like an invalid, being catered to, being helped to do something. Carlos can do this, can let him in, so there's no reason why Max can't – other than that he's being a pussy, and Max is anything but that. So, instead of letting Carlos take his time on the prep, he flexes down into it and onto it, even though it's uncomfortable, knowing that he can get himself readier than Carlos can, because Carlos is too concerned with whether or not it's uncomfortable.

“Relax,” Carlos says, and Max thinks- _no_.

The prep seems to take fucking ages. There's an odd look in Carlos' eyes as he does it, and he keeps putting a hand on Max's hip to still him, which is maddening. All Max wants is to be ready, to get on with it, to be the person that can rather than the person who cannot, and the longer he waits the more afraid he feels.

“You don't have to do this,” Carlos says, and it lights a touchpaper in Max's mind.

“I do,” he says. “This is- I can't not do this. This is part of being with a guy, and I don't- I don't want to miss out on it. I don't want to miss out on anything. I don't want you to miss out. I-”

“Max,” Carlos says. “I'm not missing out. I love everything we do. You don't have to do this if you don't want to, or don't like it. That's OK. Everything we do is great.”

Yes, Max wants to say, but I bet Pierre did it with you.

“I want to,” he says. 

Carlos looks at him for a long moment, and then nods. “You have to tell me if it's too much. I won't force it. You understand?”

You won't have to, Max thinks. I'll take whatever it is. Just go. He nods.

They try. Carlos has used a lot of lube, but it still doesn't feel enough. The first touch of his dick is enough to make him tense up, and at the first hint of pressure, everything becomes even tighter, even less compliant. All he can think about is the pain. He's consumed by the pain. And as much as he tries not to show it, grits his teeth rather than frowning, moans internally rather than externally, he knows that it's showing on his face. 

“Max,” Carlos says. 

“What?” Max semi-explodes.

“I'm not doing this.”

“But-”

“It hurts you. It's not OK for me. I don't want to hurt you. Nothing is worth that. I just want you to feel good, and to be the person doing that. We don't need to do this.”

“Then- you don't- I won't fuck you, it's not fair that I get-”

“Max-”

“It's not _fair_.”

“I love it when you fuck me. You should keep doing that to me. I'm used to it, I- it's experience. Not that I've- had lots of experience, just-”

Max does not want to talk about that.

“Can I just make you come? I love it when you come. It's so hot. We don't have to do this. Don't ask me to do this.”

Max closes his eyes, and sighs, long. “I think the mood is gone.”

“OK,” Carlos says, and lies down beside him. “I don't want you to feel like shit.”

“I don't,” Max snaps.

“OK,” Carlos says. “Good. Look at me?”

“I want to shower. I want this stuff out of me.”

“Want me to help?”

No, Max thinks, I don't want you to witness the evidence of fucking failure, running down my legs, you fucking- God, Christ, why are you being so nice? Why? Can't you just get mad, like I would with you? Can't you stop looking at me like I'm about to cry? Am I about to cry? No. Jesus.

“No,” he says. “It's OK. I can manage.”

“OK,” Carlos says. “It really is OK.”

“For you, maybe,” Max says, as he leaves the room. 

Carlos closes his eyes, and sighs.

There, Max thinks. That's more like what you're really feeling about me and about this sorry excuse for gay sex we're having, isn't it. 

 

**Carlos**

When he sees Max off at the airport, Max is unusually quiet. Carlos feels terrible about the night before. He wonders whether he should probably have refused outright, but Max would've probably been more upset. He doesn't have the right words to reassure him, and he doesn't know what else to do, other than to cover him in kisses and hold him close and try to make him see that everything he does is enough. 

Max, though, has become brittle and resistant to touch. Carlos, deprived of an answer and therefore the ability to help, is quietly bereft. 

There's a terrible fear, Carlos has, that when they part Max will try to shake his hand. So, when they're standing there, he tries to keep a conversation going.

“Looking forward to the launch?” he asks. “Last year, we ate fizzy cola bottles for hours, remember? By the time we were ready to go on, we were totally high on sugar. I thought you were going to run out there and do parkour on the side stands by the car.”

Max smiles. “Yeah, let's not do that this year,” he says. 

“I had an amazing time, you know that? I really did.”

“I know. Me too.”

“OK, good. Just- I wanted you to know that-”

“Carlos, it's fine, I'm over it. Don't worry. Look, we'll text. OK? It's fine.”

“OK. Look after Bertie.”

“Sure. 'Bye.”

What Max does is worse than a handshake; it's a nothing. Not even a hug. Carlos lowers his arms as he retreats, shoves his hands in his back pockets, and frowns. We're in public, he tells himself. That's all it is.

**MELBOURNE (MARCH 2016)**

**Carlos**

First Grand Prix of his second season. Second Australia. There are no family 'phone calls, this time, but his parents both send delighted texts at his second points scoring finish there in as many years. He's excited by the early promise of the car and he's comforted by knowing that he has Max at his side. He is secure in that. 

Well. Perhaps not today.

It's Max's second Australian Grand Prix, too. And once again, he's outside the points. The difficulty for Carlos is that, in 2015, Max came to congratulate him. Max was chipper. Max got to drive today, that was all that mattered to him.

In 2016, it seems that just driving is no longer enough. 

The debrief is stifling, and not just because the air conditioning is forever on the blink.

“Max,” Franz says, “I understand how you feel, but-”

“Yes, I know, don't say shit like this on the radio, don't embarrass the team. I get it, but aren't you embarrassed by what happened to me today? I qualified fifth. Fifth! I was sixth, and struggling, and I was supposed to be the first pit call. I said over and over, my tyres are done, I want to pit, and you pulled in him instead, and then he comes out and he has my advantage. And then when you finally pit me, my guys aren't even ready. It _is_ a joke.”

“Carlos had an issue, and we had to pit him before you. Your pitstop – yes, clearly, we had some issues today, and we'll look into them and learn from it, but you can't just lose your cool like that. It reflects badly on everyone. It doesn't do your guys any good to hear it. You have to-”

“What about doing me good? I am trying, all the time, to get past Carlos, because I know I can beat him, and he is slowing me down. And you do nothing. You-”

“In Singapore, last year, we had the same situation, with the two of you reversed,” Franz says, calmly, and Carlos is grateful that he doesn't have to point it out. His eyes pass solemnly between his boss and his boyfriend, and he's wearing loose threads in the hem of his team shirt. There is no way to come out of this a winner. 

“Yeah, well-”

“And we learned from that, because we were wrong to ask you to move over. It would have been wrong to ask Carlos to let you through today.”

“I could've done something, he wasn't doing it-”

“We were doing the same lap times,” Carlos says. “I couldn't have let you through without seriously compromising my race.”

“Yeah, well-”

“Max, you're lucky you got away with just clipping Carlos. That could have been a very damaging result for the team, and it came about because you got impatient. That cannot happen, and you know it.”

“If you'd just let me through-”

“Or what?” Carlos says, taken by a sudden anger. “They have to let you through or you'll hit me?”

“I don't hit people on purpose, but it could've been avoided if they'd just listened to me!”

“Or if you'd kept calm and done what the team was asking?”

“Fuck off, Carlos,” Max says. “You came to me in Singapore, all- “it's not fair that the team didn't let me through”-”

“I didn't say that! I-”

““I could've beaten you fairly but the team didn't allow it”-”

“That is a downright _lie_ ,” Carlos says. “Franz-”

“Yeah, OK, ask Franz to help you out, that's so typical-”

“That's enough,” Franz says. “We hired you both as adults, not children. Max, you were given a Super Licence on the basis of being old enough and experienced enough to do this job. You may only be 18 but we expect you to uphold that decision to give you that licence, do you understand? If you want to behave like an infant, you need to go back to Formula 3.”

Max and Carlos both stare at Franz in disbelief. Only one of them has any right to be outraged, Carlos thinks, but clearly Max doesn't see it the same way. And when Max is outraged, there isn't enough space for anything else in the room. He shakes his head, curls his lip, and stands up. He walks over to the door, walks through it, and slams it hard behind him. Carlos blinks, once, twice.

“I know you're not a child,” Franz says, wearily. “I've always respected your maturity. But you need to handle him better. You need to stop letting him get to you.”

Carlos sighs. Easier said than done.

He doesn't go and see Max that night. He gives interviews, reasonably banal but he knows Max won't like him questioning what there is to be angry about. But that's just it, really – it isn't anything like Singapore. Max has nothing to be so cross about and Carlos is convinced that, given a day or two, he'll realise that. 

He's wrong: it takes a whole other race.

**SAKHIR (APRIL 2016)**

**Max**

Toro Rosso has never scored points in Bahrain, so when he qualifies 10th he's determined not to lose a single place, and to gain many more. The atmosphere between he and Carlos is tense, has been tense every since Australia, because their personal connection isn't enough to bridge the professional gap – if anything, it widens it. Max thinks it's better to just concentrate on their jobs, and he assumes agreement in Carlos' dignified silence.

It helps that he out-qualifies him.

The race goes really well. He finishes a solid 6th, having wrung the neck of the car. Carlos retires after a scrappy show. As far as Max is concerned, he's proved his mettle. He doesn't need to say anything more to Franz. He's aware, too, of his dad in the background of the garage. Jos is more and more a constant presence, now. 

Still. He wants to be charitable, so he goes to find Carlos in the hotel, much later.

When Carlos opens the door, he smiles, but the sides are slightly clipped.

“Max,” he says.

“Last time I checked.”

“Mm.”

“Can I come in?”

“Are you going to speak like an adult?”

Max bristles. “Yes. You don't have to speak to me like I'm a child. I can have an adult conversation.”

Carlos holds the door open for him. 

Max sits on his bed, despite it not being offered to him. He vaguely recalls doing a similar thing last year, and, well. They're closer now. No biggie. But when Carlos sees him, he frowns, and goes to sit in the chair instead. 

“You can sit with me,” Max says. 

“I am currently upset with you,” Carlos says. “I don't want to sit with you.”

“That's childish.”

“No,” Carlos says. “I just don't want to touch someone when I'm upset and mad at them. Can't you understand that?”

Max shrugs. “I got over what happened in Australia.”

“In the race, yes, fine. I am over it, too. But it was embarrassing, how you spoke to Franz-”

“Not to you.”

“What?”

“You can't be embarrassed for how I spoke to someone else. I can be, but you can't. And I wasn't, so I don't see why you should be.”

“I don't like situations like that.”

“You're in the wrong job.”

“No, no. You can handle things differently. It doesn't have to be so- a debrief is a time to go over what happened, to be calm, to discuss things in an adult way even if we are angry-”

“There you go again. I'm not a child!”

“No, I know, but you are so hot in your mind, always. Even in Singapore, when I was very angry, I did not stomp out of the debrief. It was important to discuss it.”

“You came and had a go at me.”

“We had an adult conversation which turned into an argument. But not in front of the team. That embarrasses me.”

“I'm sorry it embarrasses you. But I think people should be honest. I say what I think, and, well. People don't always like it, but I have to do what's right for me.”

“You just don't have to do it in that way. I do what's right for me too, but I don't talk like that to my boss, or-”

“Like I said before, you'll win Employee of the Month, I'll be a champion. You have to stand up for yourself, nobody else will. You have to fight for your own chances, nobody else will give you them-”

“Nobody gave me my chances,” Carlos says. “You are so infuriating like this. I'm talking about how you speak to your colleagues, your-”

“They know what I think, and they'll get better from this. They'll learn and not do it again.”

“One day, you will be wrong, and you will have to know how to accept that. Or they will be, and you will have to know how to forgive them. So that they can easily forgive you, when you crash the car, or something. That's what I think.”

“I don't need their forgiveness if I crash the car. It's not what I'm here to do, to apologise for making a mistake. They wouldn't respect it. I'm here to deliver, and I'll do that. I don't apologise for crashing, because it's not me failing them, it's just- it doesn't mean that I don't care, or that I'm not trying. I never apologise for crashing.”

“If you crash the car, many people have to stay and-”

“I know that, and that's- we're not talking about the same thing.”

“We are,” Carlos says. “We just disagree.”

“Well.” Max says. “I don't want to embarrass you. I don't. But it's my business. I won't be told how to do something, not by my dad, not by you. I won't say things the team wants to hear, I'll say the truth and it'll make them better. That's who I am. Can you accept it?”

Carlos cocks his head. “You know I have. You know I already have. But please do not lie about what I say to you. That is very hurtful. I want to prioritise the team. I said nothing to you in Singapore like you said to Franz. I wanted to do better, for the team.”

“OK,” Max says. “Fine. I guess I misunderstood you, in Singapore. But I think once in a while, you should think about yourself, not the team.”

“We aren't enemies, me and the team. I am not the opponent of my team.”

“No,” Max says. “But they're not your friend.”

Carlos sighs. “I just would like very much to touch you, and not be mad.”

Max looks at him. “Well, then. Touch me, and don't be mad.”

“But I am mad.”

“Then how can you not be mad?”

“I don't-”

But Max knows, even if Carlos doesn't. He rises from the bed, slinks towards him. He's inching his shirt up, showing off his hips and their sinew, his thick belly, dusted with hair. Carlos licks his lips, and meets his eyes.

“That's helping,” he says.

“Good,” Max says. “Touch me, and don't be mad.”

Carlos presses his fingers against the warm plain of Max's belly, and then rests his forehead there. The blood stamps in his ears, and he prays for inner calm. He prays to, somehow, not be mad. 

And somehow, he succeeds.

**SHANGHAI (APRIL 2016)**

**Carlos**

The race goes OK; both he and Max score for the team and whilst he'd prefer their positions were reversed, it hardly seems worth picking a fight about. It's only later, when the paddock starts buzzing about Sebastian's words with Daniil in the cool-down room, that his ears perk up. 

Max is still hanging around, too, so Carlos beckons him over. He climbs up onto the high shelf next to Carlos, below which the engineers buzz around with the parts and the leads, and nudges him with his shoulder. 

“What?” he says. 

“Seb called Dany a torpedo,” Carlos says. Max's eyes glitter.

“Please tell me there's a video,” he says.

“There's a video.” Carlos grins. He turns his phone lengthways and Max huddles in closer. They watch it, and Max guffaws gently in that ridiculous adorable way he has. They watch Seb give Daniil what Jenson would call 'a right telling off', and they watch Daniil having none of it. It makes for very entertaining viewing. 

“Good on Dany,” Max says, as Carlos slides the 'phone back into his pocket. Because- well, of course he does.

“Hm,” Carlos says. “I didn't see it, what happened at the start, but I think Dany wasn't very respectful.”

“Why should he be?”

“Because Sebastian is giving him advice, and he has won many championships. I'm not saying he should say thank you, but he is being rude to him. I don't like it.”

Max shrugs. “Maybe Seb is wrong. Maybe he isn't. Maybe Dany just doesn't care, you know- he said it, we're both on the podium, what's the issue?”

“I think you have to think about safety, not just the result. It's wrong to just say, well, I got a good result, so I don't need to think about what happened. Next time, maybe you will hurt someone.”

“Next time might be totally different. It's sour grapes,” Max says. “Seb's just arse-covering because he hit Kimi. I think it's cool that Dany wouldn't be intimidated.”

“I dreamed of being like Seb,” Carlos says. “Coming through the junior programme. He was- he was the sign, of what could be done. I wanted to do that, so much.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I dunno. I just wanted to be me. He's great, but he isn't always right. People look up to him too much.”

“No, but when he gives advice, you should listen. If in your head, you ignore it, that's fine. But don't say that to his face. It's disrespectful.”

“Respect has to be earned,” Max says. “Call me a torpedo and I'll tell you to fuck off.”

I know you will, Carlos thinks.

 

**Max**

“I struggle with why they want to keep Daniil,” Jos says. He's watching Max pack, and Max is folding all of his clothes more times than is really necessary, because his mind is elsewhere, on Carlos. 

“I guess he just got a podium,” Max says. “They think he's going to come good.”

“He's not, though, is he? Not if he keeps binning it.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I don't know. I mean, I don't rate him, either, but-”

“I think that if we handled it well, we could start some discussions going.”

There's a beat. Max pauses, in folding a team shirt. “What do you mean?” he asks, carefully.

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh.” Max says. “But- they're not. We spoke to Franz, in December, they weren't-”

“That was then. Daniil isn't performing. I think we should re-open the discussion.”

Daniil has just got them a podium. There's nothing to talk about. So why not? “OK,” Max says. 

“Great,” Jos says.

**SOCHI (MAY 2016)**

**Max**

The bed is warm and the sunlight is icy bright. The curtain moves, faintly, with the air conditioning. Carlos comes out of the bathroom and climbs back into bed, his body still warm from sleep but with a minty freshness. The kissing resumes, with more urgency, Max's hands buried deep in the grooves of Carlos' hips and gripping on for dear life. Fuck, he whispers. _Fuck_.

“Fuck me,” Carlos murmurs. Max's head is buried in his neck when he says it, and Carlos' fingers are firm around his own neck, but the words move through him like champagne bubbles as he realises that it's an instruction, not a turn of phrase. 

Carlos really loves being fucked. He loves everything, Carlos, he's the kind of person who delights in any and all physical contact, but nothing gets him as wrung out as this. Max pauses. The guilt rises. He remembers what he said a few months ago – that if he couldn't give, he wouldn't take – but it's hard to mean the words in the same way, when their skin is so naked together. He pushes the guilt away. If he's going to be weak and unable to give, he'll just have to be powerful when he's taking. Luckily, Carlos seems to enjoy a bit of masculine domination. He tugs him down the bed, and Carlos grins in delight. 

He's learning all the tricks. How to rub the lube together on his hands so it's warm, how to prep someone so as to leave them gasping for more. How to hold yourself above someone whilst gently wriggling your fingers, and how to ensure that you don't hurt them. How not to feel like it's a medical exam. How not to blush, or feel awkward. Mostly he just watches Carlos' face, and tries to forget himself. His own involvement in it. It works, mostly.

When he's ready, when they're ready, he takes Carlos' thighs and wraps them around him, tucks the calves onto his shoulders and adjusts the pillow beneath his back. Carlos watches his preparations with a sardonic amused expression, like Max is getting ready to race and Carlos is just there, watching him go about his business, like it isn't sex. He strokes himself off, throughout. Not with any urgency. Just to keep the engine ticking over.

Max hates that he barely even grimaces anymore. No- that sounds wrong. He doesn't _want_ him to grimace, to be hurt. Of course he doesn't. But Carlos finding it OK reminds him that he himself doesn't. If Carlos were being strong, then all it would do is remind him that he's weak. But it's worse, because Carlos isn't being strong – he doesn't have to be, because there's nothing demanding his courage. There is nothing to be afraid of. Max isn't even being weak in the face of an almighty foe, he's just being irrationally, stupidly weak. And never does that hit him harder than when he's sliding home, and instead of wincing and resisting and asking for it to stop, like Max always does, Carlos sighs, because for him it truly is _home_.

Carlos reaches up and palms Max's sides, as he moves in and out. Runs his hands up and into his hair, bringing his head down for a kiss. And naturally, the physical pleasure takes over, and being a man does its job. His dick feels tingly and good, and Carlos' fingertips are so hot on his skin and so needy, so desperate are his kisses that Max can almost forget his own weakness.

Until he realises, again and again and _always_ too late, that instead of being this dominating force, he's lost concentration. He's pushed it over an edge, he's passed the point at which he can hold it off, so he shifts, and so he grimaces, and he makes a frustrated noise in Carlos' mouth, and Carlos responds by patting him, and whilst Max wants to find it reassuring he mostly just finds it patronising, and in that angry spirit he comes. The discrepancy between the physical (blinding, hot, beautiful, soul on fire- he'll never do anything so good in his life) and the emotional (I hate myself) is more than Max can bear. 

 

**Carlos**

Max is snoring, and Carlos is trying not to fall asleep, because he's watching him, and in watching him, he can figure it out. One day, anyway, the plan will work, and he'll understand what the problem that they're having is. Why Max hasn't been there, not truly, not since they went their separate ways after London. Or perhaps it started in London? But Carlos can't believe that the incident on the last night would still be with them, because- well, they're having sex again, and Max seems to be enjoying it, and why would he be thinking about something that happened so long ago? It must have begun with what happened in Australia. But then, surely if that were still an issue they wouldn't be having sex at all?

Max's eyelashes move when he breathes, and Carlos smiles. He brushes his cheek with his thumb, and wills Max to let him understand. To let him follow him where he goes when he's balls deep, and doing that awake-dreaming that people do when they're fucking, and lost in both themselves and what the other person thinks they are. What other people do, before they truly understand how to make love. 

He reminds himself, often, that Max is still young. Very inexperienced. Very hot under the collar. Luckily, Carlos has time, all the time in the world, for them to learn together. As the curtain drifts, Carlos smiles. He knows that, whatever happens, they can do this together.

It's a year since that first blowjob in the hospital, he thinks, with a smile, as he succumbs to sleep.

***

In the race, Daniil hits Sebastian, not once, but twice. He's roundly cornered by the media, in light of the argument the two had in China.

Carlos isn't worried. He's just scored a podium, after all. Even when he sees the footage of Sebastian talking to Christian, he isn't concerned. Sebastian knows Christian well, they all share the same family. He isn't surprised that Sebastian would feel compelled to give Christian advice, just as he did Dany a fortnight ago. He doesn't think any more of it, not even when the media gets its knives out. That is the only point of journalists, he's starting to think – stirring up the pot when otherwise the soup would get along just fine. 

He doesn't even think twice when he hears the ridiculous rumour that Dany is getting demoted back to Toro Rosso. 

No. He only starts to worry when he doesn't see Max at all after the race. When he keeps ringing Max, and Max won't answer his 'phone. When he sends him texts, and gets left on read.

Then, he starts to worry really rather a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  
> And sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler,  
> Long I stood."
> 
> ― Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken 
> 
>  
> 
> Coming soon. Two roads.


End file.
